OmiKS  mcvimur  rf  mAjx  aaucr  Ma., 


EX  LIBRIS 
William  Jiarry  Jiol^kins 


ERRATUM: 

th.uJ.  1-  ^    r'''^'^    •'quadrillions-    in 
the    ast  l.nc  of  pa^^e  2S5-insert 

rom^\  ?Mr'^-^  trillions:  this  l,v 
i.ooo.ooo   billions: — 


DUKE  UNIVERSITY 


LIBRARY 


The  Glenn  Negley  Collection 
of  Utopian  Literature 


THE 

Lunarian  Professor 


AND 


His  Remarkable  Revelations  Concerning 
the  Earth,  the  Moon  and  Mars 


TOGETHER    WITH 


An  Account  of  the  Cruise  of  the 
Sally  Ann 


BY 


JAMES  B.  ALEXANDER 

AUTHOR  OF  THE  DYNAMIC  THEORY.  THE  SOUL  ANO  ITS  BEARINGS 
AND  OTHERS 


Minneapolis,  Minn. 

1909 


CCPYRISHT  193i3 

BY 
JAMES  B.  ALEXAr4DER 


R  r3  F 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Preface. 

I.  An   Outing    1 

An  Old  Time  Adventure   2' 

Cruise  of  the  Sally  Ann   , .  4 

The  M.  &  N.  W.  Railway 10 

An  Old  Stake   14 

II.  The  Professor   17 

III.  The  Moon  and  Its  People   31 

IV.  Lite  on  and  in  the  Moon  51 

V.  Mundane  Prognostication    70 

The  Profile  of  Time   73 

Single  Tax    81 

VI.  Confiscation  of  Lands  93 

Purchase  of  the  Railways   101 

Regulation  of  the  Currency   105 

Socialism    r 107 

VIL  Woman's  Rights   113 

The  Family    117 

Progress  in  the  Church 119 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VIII.  Marriage  and  Divorce    124 

Changes  in  Map  of  U.  S 128 

Russia  and  England   129 

New  Political  Divisions   133 

The  Flying  Machines   140 

Sun  Power   152 

Over  Population   155 

IX.  Pessimism  vs  Optimism    158 

The  Three  Grand  Nations   164 

X.  The  Third  Sex   182 

The  Decay  of  the  Family   187 

XI.  The  Millenniums   195 

The  Man  of  the  100th  Millennium   ....  199 

XII.  Universal  State  and  Language 207 

XIII.  Mars  and  the  Martians   225 

XIV.  The  Canals   238 

The  Moons    241 

XV.  The  Great  Debt   255 

Deimos  and  the  Great  Cable   260 

XVI.  Phobos    268 

The  New  Cable    273 

Proposed  Abduction  of  i\Iars   277 

The  Return  Voyage   282 

Appendix    283 


PREFACE. 

The  reader  will  please  remember  that  this  visit 
and    revelation    of    the    Lunarian    Professor    took 
place  in  1892,  seventeen  years  ago,  and  some  of 
the  predictions  are  already  due  of  fulfillment  or  of 
apparent  progress  in  that  direction.     For  example 
he  gives  Minneapolis  a  population  of  1,780,000  in 
the  year  1925  only  sixteen  years  from  the  present. 
This  is  worse  than  ^Yalton.     But  I  do  not  feel  at 
liberty  to  alter  the  Professional  utterances.     If  I 
should  begin  to  do  this  I  would  never  knovx^  where 
to  stop.     There  will  doubtless  be  found  other  pre- 
dictions at  variance  with  our  ideas,   especially  as 
to  the  time  in  which  the   fulfillment   should  take 
place.     Time   is   the   most   uncertain   element    con- 
cerned  in   prophetic   utterances.      Give    a   prophet 
time  enough  and  he  will  successfully  predict  you 
anything  you  like.     "All  things  come  to  him  v/ho 
waits."  But  I  have  not  the  assurance  to  change  any- 
thing  the    Professor   has  said  and  I  am  not  prepared 
to  aver  that  the  truths  as  they  appear  to  common 
mundane  mortals  are  to  be  preferred  to  the  errors 
however  manifest  of  so  illustrious  a  prophet — just 
as  we  accept  the  dicta  of  Moses  or  St.  Paul— when 
we  are  entirely  sure  they  do  not  know  what  they 
are    talking    about.      Our    Professor    is    probably 
wrong  in  regard  to  the  settlement  of  some  of  the 
questions  taken  up  by  him,  but  to  tell  the  honest 


Prpface 

tmth,  I  am  too  ignorant  of  the  disputed  points  to 
CDUtradict  him.  li'  he  says  black  is  Avhile  it  y:\ 
safer  for  me  not  to  talk  back.  But  when  it  comes 
to  plain  statements  of  facts,  concerning  the  pres- 
ent conditions  on  the  Moon  and  Mars,  in  which, 
from  the  abundance  of  personal  knowledge  there 
remains  no  license  to  draw  upon  his  imagination 
for  his  facts,  I  implicitly  trust  the  Professor.  I 
never  saw  a  pair  of  eyes  so  full  of  honesty  for 
their  size,  or  of  as  large  capacity  for  honesty  as 
his.  Even  there,  however,  some  of  his  statements 
are  liable  to  be  contradicted.  For  example,  the 
theory  of  the  hump  or  protuberance  on  the  hither 
side  of  the  Moon,  w^hich  had  some  currency  among 
our  astronomers  40  or  50  years  ago  appears  later 
to  have  been  abandoned  by  at  least  some  of  them, 
but  we  should  not  allow  mere  theory  to  counter- 
balance the  testimony  of  a  competent  eye  witness. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  the  Professor  has 
made  almost  no  mention  of  the  great  Japanese- 
Russian  war.  But  as  this  war  settled  nothing, 
did  not  even  settle  what  there  was  to  be  settled 
it  may  be  considered  as  a  mere  incident  in  the 
discussion  of  the  real  question  at  issue.  This  is 
only  my  conjecture  of  the  reason  of  his  silence. 

The  point  of  view  assumed  by  a  Prophet  is  of 
little  consequence  compared  with  what  he  sees. 
Some  say,  back-sight  is  more  reliable  than  fore- 
sight, and  that,  considered  as  a  magazine  of  facts, 
history  is  preferable  to  the  imagination.  But 
back-sight  is  history,  and  like  good  liquor  it  re- 
quires aging  and  maturing.  The  association  of 
the    imagination    supplies    these    effects.      History 


Preface 

must  be  read  with  the  help  of  the  imagination  even 
for  present  use;  still  more  if  the  inquiry  embraces 
a  glance  into  the  future. 

Si  quaeris  futura,  circumspice.  If  you  would 
know  the  future  look  around  you.  That  which 
has  been  will  be.  All  things  have  ever  been  un- 
der the  domination  of  evolution  and  they  ever  will 
b^.  Therefore,  let  the  imagination  explore  its  trail, 
a  ad  you  are  at  once  a  prophet. 


CHAPTER  I. 

An  Outing. 

Let  me  see.  It  was  six  (6)  years  since  I  had  an 
outing.  It  seemed  a  long  time  and  it  was  long 
enough  to  obscure  the  conviction  I  had  once  arrived 
at  that  the  average  outing  is  on  the  whole  more  of 
a  bore  than  a  pleasure  and  that  its  principal  value 
consists  in  making  a  fellow  satisfied  with  his  ordi- 
nary w^ork  and  glad  to  get  back  to  it  again.  I  am 
tolerably  sure  that  I  should  have  reached  the  same 
opinion  even  if  I  had  not  been  the  victim  of  a  cer- 
tain wretched  adventure  that  happened  away  back 
in  my  ''courting  days".  On  the  occasion  referred  to 
I  had  taken  my  best  girl  for  a  little  rowing  and  fish- 
ing on  Brush  Lake.  ^Ye  had  not  proceeded  far  when 
she  *'got  a  bite",  and  it  nearly  drove  her  wild  with 
excitement,  she  stood  up  in  the  boat  and  from  her 
frantic  exertions  I  judged  she  had  hooked  nothing 
less  than  a  six  pound  bass.  At  last  she  pulld  it  out 
with  a  horizontal  sweep,  and  whirling  around  with 
it,  the  middle  of  the  line  struck  my  head  Avith  such 
force  as  to  send  the  fish  revolving  around  my  neck 
five  times,  and  wound  up  by  inserting  the  hook  in 
the  end  of  my  nose  and  leaving  the  fish  dangling 
and  flapping  against  my  face — a  ridiculous  little 
Sninfish  not  over  three  inches  long.  The  excited  lady 
dropped  her  pole  and  made  such  a  violent  lunge  to 
secure  her  prize  that  she  upset  the  boat  and  left  us 
both  floundering  in  the  water.    Amongst  the  fifteen 


2  The  Lvnarian  Professor 

or  twenty  spectators  on  the  shore  was  Aquarius 
Jinks,  whose  father  was  a  fisherman  and  had  brought 
him  up  to  think  no  more  of  jumping  into  the  water 
than  a  water  spaniel.  So  in  he  jumped  and  in  a 
jiffy  he  rescued  my  lady  and  took  her  to  the  nearest 
house  to  get  some  dry  clothes.  As  for  mj^self,  I  Avas 
getting  out  all  right  in  spite  of  the  embarrassment 
of  the  choking  line,  my  lacerated  nose  and  that; 
wretched  fish  that  did  not  for  a  moment  let  up  its 
frantic  struggling  and  flapping.  In  addition  to  this 
I  had  the  misfortune  to  be  encumbered  by  the  clum- 
sy assistance  of  a  fat  German  saloon-keeper,  who  by 
the  help  of  the  pole,  which  had  now  floated  near 
the  shore,  drew  me  up,  amid  the  jeers  of  the  crowd, 
that  now  by  the  barbarous  custom  of  the  times,  I 
was  obliged  to  ** treat." 

This  exposure  laid  me  up  for  six  weeks  with  the 
chills,  and  about  the  end  of  that  time  there  was  a 
Vi^edding — my  girl  married  that  Jinks,  who  took 
this  perfidious  advantage  of  me.  I  felt  very  sore 
for  a  long  time  in  the  region  of  the  diaphragm.  The 
poets  usually  designate  the  heart  as  the  particular 
organ  affected  in  such  cases,  but  I  am  persuaded  it 
is  the  semi  lunar  ganglion  or  solar  plexus,  probably 
the  former,  from  the  fact  tjiat  the  victim  is  apt  to 
be  affected  by  semi  lunacy.  But  that  is  a  question 
of  physiology. 

Although  I  never  had  another  such  disastrous 
experience,  yet  as  I  said  at  first,  the  average  outing 
with  its  accidents,  fatigues  and  discomforts,  had  on 
the  whole,  left  no  very  favorable  impression  on  me. 
Yet  I  had  made  up  my  mind  after  an  interval  of  six 
years  to  try  one  more.    !?Jy  literary  work  had  tired 


An  Ouiing  ?, 

me  out,  and  a  trip,  if  it  gave  no  pleasure,  would  hurt 
at  least  in  another  place. 

August  the  third,  1892,  found  me  installed  in  a 
cottage,  at  Cottagewood,  at  the  eastern  end  of  Lake 
Minnetonka.  My  plans  were  simple.  I  had  a  gun, 
a  boat  and  fishing  tackle,  but  of  these  I  intended  to 
make  small  use.  I  would  rest  most  of  the  time,  and 
lie  under  the  trees  and  read  or  loaf  as  I  saw  fxt.  I 
would  buy  my  food  of  such  kind  and  in  such  condi- 
tion as  -to  take  but  little  time  for  its  preparation, 
for  I  intended  to  ''keep  bach"  for  which  I  was 
qualified  by  more  or  less  previous  experience.  If 
at  any  time  I  wanted  a  square  meal,  I  could  take  a 
row  around  to  the  St.  Louis  hotel,  or  if  the  wind 
were  favorable  could  sail  over  to  the  Lafayette,  or 
to  Excelsior.  In  short,  I  meant  to  rest  and  take  it 
easy;  do  nothing  at  all  to-day,  that  I  could  put  off 
till  tom.orrow.  I  thought  this  all  over  the  first  day 
and  in  accordance  with  the  programme  proceeded 
to  make  myself  as  lazy  as  possible.  I  succeeded 
well.  It  requires  but  little  effort  to  become  lazy 
when  one  is  in  the  afternoon  of  life.  During  a  week 
my  activity  was  reduced  to  a  minimum;  I  saw  but 
few  people,  although  I  had  neighbors  only  a  few 
rods  away  concealed  by  the  thick  brush,  that  grew 
between  us.  Once  a  dog  came  and  after  looking 
aroung,  trotted  away.  As  I  sat  or  lolled  on  a  rustic 
bench  near  the  lake,  the  drowsy  monotomous  lapping 
of  the  water  against  the  shore  kept  me  for  hours  on 
the  border  land  of  sleep,  just  in  that  condition  in 
which  one  does  not  know  vrhether  the  motions  of 
bis  brain  are  dreams  or  waking  thoughts,  and  in 
which  he  often  dreams  that  he  is  dreaming.     The 


4  Tim  Lunarian  Professor 

sound  of  the  distant  puffing  of  a  steam  yacht  or  the 
merry  laughter  of  a  sailing  party,  that  occasionally 
ricochetted  to  the  shore  rather  directed  than  dis- 
turbed the  train  of  these  passive  activities. 

The  exhausted  body  or  brain  is  like  a  machine 
that  has  run  too  long  without  being  oiled.  It  goes 
with  reluctance  and  Avith  damaging  wear  and  tear. 
But  when  we  are  thoroughly  rested,  the  motives  that 
before  were  unable  to  move  us,  now  set  us  going 
with  the  greatest  facility. 

After  the  rest  and  quiet  of  a  week,  I  began  to  feel 
an  impulse  to  do  something  or  to  go  somewhere; 
and  a  short  debate  settled  that  I  would  take  a  trip 
by  sail  and  oar  to  the  upper  lake.  As  I  did  not  in- 
tend to  hurry  and  might  be  gone  two  or  three  days, 
I  laid  in  a  stock  of  provisions  accordingly ;  with  such 
cooking  apparatus  as  a  coffee  pot  and  frying  pan. 
Nowhere  is  a  cup  of  coffee,  a  slice  of  ham,  crackers 
and  cheese  so  relishable  as  when  they  satisfy  real 
thirst  and  hunger  alongside  a  camp-fire  of  dry  sticks. 
Then  perhaps  I  might  shoot  a  duck  or  hook  a  crop- 
py. At  night  the  sail  stretched  over  a  fishing  pole 
could  be  formed  into  a  shelter  tent,  something  like 
the  *'dog  tents"  Uncle  Sam  gave  us  for  shelter  in 
the  southern  campaigns  in  the  early  sixties.  In 
short  I  intended  to  make  a  regular  cruise,  and  as  my 
boat  vras  named  Sally  Ann,  this  trip  should  be 
known  in  history  as  the  cruise  of  the  Sally  Ann. 

It  was  a  fine  morning  when,  all  things  ready,  T 
hoisted  sail.  The  wind  was  from  the  southeast  and  I 
started  off  before  it  at  an  exhilarating  speed,  steer- 
ing northwest.  In  a  short  time  I  came  abreast  of 
Big  Island,  when  turning  west  skirting  its  north 


An  Outing  5 

shore,  I  soon  got  becalmed,  the  island  cutting  off 
the  wind.  I  was  obliged  to  take  the  oars,  but  as 
I  dallied  and  loitered  along,  it  w^as  a  full  hour  be- 
fore I  passed  the  island  and  caught  my  breeze  again. 
I  was  here  steering  southwest  across  the  wind  and 
heading  for  the  narrows,  and  the  canal  leading  into 
the  upper  lake.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  beauty  of 
this  lake,  no  matter  at  what  point  the  view  is  taken. 
At  this  place  looking  northeast  over  the  stern  of  the 
boat,  the  village  of  AYayzata  partly  obscured  by 
Spirit  Island,  appeared  as  if  seated  in  the  water 
half  a  mile  away,  though  in  reality  it  is  five  miles. 
On  the  souJ;heast  within  a  mile,  was  the  Lake  Park 
hotel  and  beyond  it,  half  a  mile  further  and  across 
the  entrance  to  Gideon's  Bay,  a  part  of  Excelsior 
could  be  seen  climbing  its  picturesque  hills,  while 
along  the  piers  at  the  bottom  of  their  slopes,  were 
numerous  steam  and  sailing  crafts  of  various  kinds, 
besides  a  fleet  of  row  boats. 

As  I  approached  the  entrance  to  the  canal,  I  ob- 
served standing  on  the  south  bank,  a  man  with  a 
gun  in  his  hand  and  dressed  in  outing  costume, 
whose  figure  and  attitude  reminded  me  of  someone 
I  had  seen  before.  *'Can  it  be  possible",  I  said  to 
myself,  'Hhat  that  is  Allan  Ocheltree?"  By  the 
time  the  boat  touched  the  land,  I  had  made  sure 
that  it  was  and  I  sprang  ashore  to  greet  him.  The 
recognition  and  gratification  at  meeting  were  mut- 
ual. Our  friendship  for  each  other,  was  always  the 
closest  friendship  either  of  us  had.  We  had  been 
room-mates  and  class-mates  for  four  years  at  college, 
and  our  temperaments  and  tastes  were  like  comple- 
mentary colors,  of  such  harmonious  contrast  as  to 


6  Tlic   Li'juiriiui    Professor 

fit  each  other  to  a  T.  In  our  class  we  were  to  each 
other  like  the  two  end  men  of  a  minstrel  troup;  he 
at  one  end — the  head  end — and  I  at  the  other.  It 
is  singular  how^  people,  like  drift  wood  on  the  stream 
of  time,  are  at  times  drifted  toward  each  other  and 
float  along  together  till  some  eddy  or  obstruction 
in  the  current  separates  them,  and  hurries  them 
off  in  diverging  directions,  perhaps  to  meet  again 
farther  down  the  stream,  it  may  be  more  than  once. 
Sometimes  a  leave-taking  under  circumstances,  that 
seem  to  forebode  it  to  be  the  last  and  clothe  it  in 
gloom,  and  sorrow,  is  nevertheless  not  the  last  by 
many;  while  a  cheerful  good-by  with  a  light  heart- 
ed *'ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow,"  may  prove 
the  beginning  of  a  separation  destined  to  endure  for 
years — perhaps  forever. 

The  Ocheltree  family  and  my  ancestors,  were 
from  the  same  Scotch-Irish  stock,  were  friends  and 
neighbors  near  Belfast  and  emigrated  to  Maryland 
about  two  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  settling  at 
first  in  Somerset  County.  A  few  years  later  they 
moved  north  into  Cecil  County,  and  from  there  in 
1760  a  large  emigration  took  place  to  Mecklenburg 
County,  North  Carolina.  Among  these  emigrants, 
were  Duncan  Ocheltree  and  my  grandfather's  Uncle 
John.  These  two  were  friends  and  neighbors  in  the 
new  settlement  and  when  the  revolutionary  war 
broke  out,  they  both  adopted  the  patriotic  cause. 
The  Mechlenburg  declaration  of  independence  was 
adopted  and  signed  May  20th  or  31st,  1775,  by  a 
convention  of  which  John  was  secretary,  and  it  was 
supported  by  Duncan.  But  in  1780,  Lord  Cornwal- 
lis  overran  the  state  and  captured  Charlotte,  the 


Aji  Outing  7 

county  seat  of  Mechlenburg,  and  Duncan,  believing 
all  was  lost,  hastened  to  turn  Tory  and  make  his 
submission  to  his  lordship  in  order  to  save  his  v^ealth 
of  which  he  had  acquired  a  goodly  share.  This  was 
a  bad  break  and  he  made  it  worse  by  the  superero- 
gatory zeal  of  a  new  convert,  in  harassing  his  form- 
er friends  and  piloting  the  red-coated  foragers  to 
their  hay  stacks,  hen  roosts  and  pig  pens,  not  spar- 
ing his  old  friend  John.  But  the  triumph  of  Corn- 
wallis  was  short;  in  a  few  days,  he  was  obliged  to 
evacuate  Charlotte  and  then  Duncan  realized  that 
he  had  placed  himself  in  a  very  bad  position.  As 
the  British  troops  were  packing  their  knapsacks 
preparatory  to  decamping  from  Charlotte  between 
two  days,  Duncan  determined  to  throw  himself  up- 
on the  generosity  of  his  former  friend  John,  and  so 
under  cover  of  the  darkness  he  rode  out  to  his  farm- 
house nine  miles  in  the  country.  John,  who  was  two 
miles  oft'  in  the  patriot  camp,  was  sent  for.  Duncan 
surrendered  his  sword  and  begged  his  old  friend  to 
forgive  bygones  and  advise  him  what  to  do.  John's 
sympathy  for  him  at  that  stage  of  affairs  w^as  not 
particularly  tender  as  may  be  supposed,  but  never- 
theless his  advice  was  no  doubt  the  best  possible.  He 
said:  "Ocheltree,  neither  your  life  nor  your  proper- 
ty is  safe  in  Mechlenburg.  The  Whigs  will  take  both 
Your  only  safety  is  in  instant  flight.  I  advise  you 
to  reach  the  Yadkin  before  daylight."  He  took  the 
advice.  And  so  they  parted.  Four  generations  later 
like  two  stray  straws  on  a  flood,  Allan  Ocheltree  and 
I  were  floated  into  the  same  class  room  at  school. 
Did  it  make  any  difference  to  me  or  to  him  that  his 
great  grandfather,  made  a  bad  guess  seventy  years 


8  Tlic  Lunarian  Professor 

before?  Not  a  bit.  Every  man's  ancestral  tree  is  just 
the  same  height  as  all  the  rest,  his  lineage  is  just  as 
long  and  his  pedigree  must  contain  practically  the 
same  number  of  terms  whether  we  reckon  back  to 
Adam  or  to  the  Ascidian  or  to  original  protoplasm. 
Not  a  member  of  the  long  line  made  himself  or  the 
circumstances  surrounding  him,  and  in  no  two  cases 
were  these  precisely  the  same.  The  circumstances 
that  made  Confucius  or  Alexander  the  Great,  or 
Julius  Caesar,  or  Columbus,  or  Washington  never 
happened  to  anybody  else.  It  was  no  fault  of  the 
obscure  ancestors  or  descendants  or  cousins  near 
and  remote  of  those  worthies  that  these  circumstan- 
ces never  surrounded  them.  On  the  other  hand  it 
cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  merit  of  the  long  line  of 
those  belonging  to  the  dead  level  of  the  average,  in 
size  and  in  quality,  that  they  have  been  missed  by 
the  untoward  circumstances  that  selected  certain 
individuals  to  be  in  one  respect  or  another  conspicu- 
ousl}^  below  that  dead  level. 

After  quitting  college,  Allan  and  I  occasionally 
ran  across  each  other,  but  the  last  meeting  before 
this,  occurred  in  1876  on  Arch  Street,  Philadelphia. 
He  was  interested  in  an  exhibit  in  the  great  exposi- 
tion, and  being  then  in  a  great  hurry  made  an  ap- 
pointment to  meet  me  next  morning.  I  kept  the 
engagement,  but  he  was  not  there.  I  knew  urgent 
business  had  turned  up  to  prevent  him,  and  after 
I  returned  to  my  liome  T  received  his  letter  saying 
so,  and  appointing  another  hour.  This  letter  had 
missed  me  at  my  hotel  and  followed  me  to  Illinois. 
Here  then,  we  were  having  our  reunion  sixteen  years 
after  it  was  due.     But  now  we  could  make  up  for 


An  Outing  9 

lost  time  for  neither  had  engagements  that  reqiured 
attention  for  a  week  at  least.  It  was  speedily  ar- 
ranged that  Allan  should  accompany  me  and  that  we 
should  carry  out  together  the  plan  I  had  proposed 
for  myself.  He  wrote  a  note  for  his  boarding  house 
keeper  in  Excelsior,  saying  he  would  be  gone  some 
days,  and  gave  it  to  a  rowing  party  going  to  Excel- 
sior, that  we  shortly  after  fell  in  with,  and  who 
cheerfully  consented  to  deliver  it.  The  wind  was 
still  from  the  southeast,  but  light  and  we  slowly 
sailed  westerly  and  south-westerly  passing  succes- 
sively the  state  fruit  farm  and  Sampson's  place  lying 
on  our  left,  and  Spring  Park  on  our  right,  nad  in  a 
short  time  reached  Hov/ard's  Point  that  juts  a  third 
of  a  mile  into  the  lake  from  the  south  shore.  "We 
sailed  through  the  strait  between  this  and  pictur- 
esque KockAv ell's  Island  with  its  attractive  summer 
hotel,  and  restful  looking  surroundings,  and  turn- 
ed southwest  towai'd  Smithtown  Bay. 

"We  entered  Smithtown  Bay,  but  did  not  go  to 
the  end  of  it,  for  the  wind  was  not  favorable,  and 
as  we  turned  west  toward  the  highlands  of  the  up- 
per lake  I  fell  into  a  reminiscent  mood.  Up  to  this 
time  we  had  occupied  ourselves  in  admiration  of  the 
delightful  scenery  and  in  such  careless  chat  as  oc- 
curred to  us,  sometimes  taking  a  pull  at  the  oars, 
when  we  entered  a  locality  becalmed  by  being 
screened  from  the  Avind,  and  sometimes  pulling  in 
the  fish  line  that  dragged  over  the  stern  of  the  boat 
to  see  why  we  never  got  a  bite.  But  here  the  mem- 
ories that  crowded  upon  me  completely  absorbed 
my  attention  and  I  became  silent.  I  had  tramped  all 
over  this  country  in  1877  in  the  selection  of  a  route 


10  The  Lunarian  Professor 

for  the  Minneapolis  and  Northwestern  Narrow 
Gauge  Railroad,  and  so  was  familiar  with  the  top- 
ography, not  only  of  the  upper  lake,  but  of  the  whole 
route  from  Minneapolis  to  Hutchinson.  The  first 
preliminary  line  surveyed  from  Hutchinson  to  Min- 
neapolis in  the  latter  part  of  November,  1877,  passed 
along  the  foot  of  the  high  bluff  just  in  front  of  us, 
but  the  line  was  not  finally  located  till  October,  1879. 

"When  I  explained  to  my  friend  how  the  line 
passed  south-easterly  along  the  foot  of  the  bluff,  at 
the  edge  of  the  water,  except  where  it  dodged  be- 
hind Hofiin's  headland,  and  then  swept  around  the 
head  of  Smithtown  Bay  turning  north-easterly 
toward  Excelsior,  *'I  declare"  he  exclimed,  there 
never  was  so  romantic  a  place  to  locate  an  excursion 
railroad.  So  attractive  a  line  ought  surely  to  have 
been  built.    Why  wasn  't  it  ? " 

**Weir'  I  replied,  "it  was  a  case  of  infanticide.'* 

**How  was  that?"  He  asked. 

** You've  heard  of  treacherous  midwives  and 
nurses  and  murderous  baby-farmers  being  subsidized 
to  strangle  an  unwelcome  cherub  as  soon  as  n  is 
ushered  into  the  world?" 

**Yes,  was  it  a  case  of  that  sort?" 

**This  infant  was  born  healthy  and  vigorous  af- 
ter what  might  be  called  a  rather  protracted  period 
of  gestation — some  thirty  months.  It  had  no  less 
than  twenty-one  nurses  in  the  shape  of  directors, 
which  number  was  four  times  as  great  as  it  should 
have  been  and  one  over. 

^^^^en  tliore  is  such  a  mob  of  officials,  the  man- 
agement usually  devolves  on  a  few  of  the  more  ac- 
tive and  interested.     That  active  minority  in  this 


An  Outing  11 

case  somehow  either  had  from  the  first,  or  acquired, 
a  greater  interest  in  killing  this  enterprise  to  please 
its  rivals  than  in  carrying  it  out  in  good  faith." 

''HoAV  did  the  line  run  west  of  here"  he  asked. 

''It  passed  north-westerly  along  the  foot  of  the 
bluff  yonder,  on  the  top  of  which  you  see  Smith's 
stone  house,  then  along  the  shore  just  in  front  of 
the  "hermitage",  and  a  quarter  of  a  mile  beyond 
that  it  turned  toward  the  west  and  cutting  through 
the  ridge  of  the  peninsula  that  separates  the  upper 
lake  from  Halsteds  Bay,  it  skirted  the  south  shore 
of  that  bay,  and  thence  bore  in  a  generally  w^esterly 
and  northwesterly  direction,  through  Minnetrista 
township  to  St.  Boniface  and  thence  to  Watertown. 

Halsteds  bay  itself  is  so  secluded  as  to  form  prac- 
tically a  separate  lake  and  a  beautiful  one  too." 

''Suppose  we  sail  up  along  this  shore"  said 
Ocheltree,  "I  am  quite  interested  in  the  place. 

"We  turned  the  nose  of  Sally  Ann  toward  the 
northwest  and  sailed  slowly  before  the  very  light 
wind.  We  passed  Crane  Island  lying  upon  the  right 
— a  sort  of  lying-in  hospital  and  nursery  strictly 
sacred  to  the  use  of  Cranes  only,  whose  occupancy 
dates  back  of  the  earliest  settlement  of  the  country, 
and  whose  title  has  been  secured  to  them  by  an  act 
of  the  legislature,  against  the  claims  of  all  feather- 
less  bipeds.  Further  on,  upon  the  mainland,  is  the 
hermitage  and  just  in  front  of  it  the  grave  of  Hal- 
sted,  who  many  years  ago,  lost  his  life  in  the  lake 
so  sadly  and  mysteriously.  A  short  distance  beyond 
the  hermitage,  I  pointed  out  the  place  where  the 
survey  left  the  shore  of  the  main  lake  and  cut  across 
to  Halsteds  bay.    We  concluded  to   go   on  to  the 


12  Tlte  Lunarian  Professor 

strait  leading  into  that  bay  and  sail  around  to  its 
south  shore.  To  reach  the  strait  involved  sailing 
north  a  mile  and  then  over  half  a  mile  west.  As 
the  wind  was  still  favorable  this  was  soon  accom- 
plished. But  when  we  reached  the  strait,  we  could 
no  longer  use  the  sail,  and  were  obliged  to  have  re- 
course to  the  oars.  Inside  the  bay  there  was  but  lit- 
tle wind,  and  that  was  against  us,  as  our  route  now 
lay  due  south.  A  little  over  a  mile  of  rowing  brought 
us  to  the  south  shore  of  the  bay.  Here  the  bluff 
covered  with  timber  and  underbrush  slopes  down 
to  the  water's  edge.  Along  the  foot  of  this  slope,  T 
pointed  out  to  Ocheltree  the  position  of  the  narrow 
gauge  survey.  *'It  is  a  wonderfully  romantic  place 
for  a  pleasure  road,"  said  he. 

It  was  now  considerably  past  noon,  and  our  ex- 
ercise had  begun  to  tell  on  us  both  somewhat  and 
to  suggest  a  rest  and  something  to  eat.  According- 
ly we  pulled  the  boat  up  on  the  beach,  and  got  out 
some  cooking  utensils  and  provisions.  I  started  off 
to  collect  some  dry  sticks  to  make  a  fire  and  Allan 
took  a  pail  and  proceeded  along  the  shore  to  find  a 
deep  place  or  a  boulder  from  which  he  could  dip 
up  clear  water  for  our  coffee.  AYe  happened  to  go 
together  for  a  fev/  rods,  when  glancing  up  the  slope 
a  short  distance,  I  discovered  a  stake  sticking  in  the 
ground.  I  gave  an  exclamation  of  surprise  and 
quickly  ran  to  secure  it.  It  proved  to  be  what  I 
suspected,  one  of  the  stakes  of  the  narrow  erauge 
surwey.  ^'WHiat  have  you  found,  old  fellow?"  Allan 
asked.  I  told  him,  and  it  seemed  surprising  to  both 
of  us  that  that  frail  bit  of  a  pine  stick  should  have 
survived  the  storms  and  accidents  of  thirteen  years. 


An  Outing  13 

We  had  used  for  stakes  on  those  surveys  common 
plastering  lath ;  one  lath  four  feet  long  being  cut  in 
the  middle  made  two  stakes.  This  was  such  a  stake, 
an  inch  and  a  half  wide  and  three-eighths  of 
an  inch  thick.  It  owed  its  exceptional  preserva- 
tion to  the  fact  that  it  was  full  of  pitch  and  to 
its  protected  position.  It  had  been  driven  in  a  slant- 
ing position,  partly  under  the  body  of  a  large  fallen 
tree,  that  lay  over  the  point  where  the  stake  should 
have  been  set.  The  number  of  the  stake  had  been 
written  with  red  chalk,  on  the  side  that  had  hap- 
pened to  come  underneath  and  so  was  largely  pro- 
tected from  the  rains.  But  it  was  now  illegible,  four 
red  blotches  being  all  that  remained. 

A  person  walking  through  our  Minnesota  woods 
will  often  meet  with  a  little  mound  of  earth,  along- 
side of  which  he  will  see  a  cupshaped  depression  in 
the  ground.  The  depression  marks  the  spot  where 
at  some  time  in  the  past  there  stood  a  noble  tree, 
and  it  indicates  that  the  tree  yielding  to  the  force 
of  an  ancient  tornado  was  toppled  over,  and,  pulling 
its  roots  out  of  the  ground  drew  up  with  them  a 
cubic  yard,  more  or  less,  of  earth.  Afterwards  when 
the  roots  began  to  decay  the  earth  was  dropped  in 
a  heap  beside  the  hole.  There  was  such  a  mound 
and  hollow  at  the  west  end  of  the  rotten  log  in  ques- 
tion, showing  that  it  had  been  overthrown  by  the 
fierce  assault  of  a  western  hurricane.  The  mound 
was  old,  well  rounded  by  the  action  of  the  weather 
and  covered  with  a  mat  of  grass.  I  sat  down  on  this 
mound  in  a  half  reclining  position,  with  the  stake  in 
my  hand,  and  tried  again  without  success  to  make 


1-t  The  Lunarian  Professor 

out  the  number*.  A  solitary  mosquito  was  singiiif): 
about  my  right  ear,  and  persisted  in  returning  and 
constantly  evaded  my  efforts  to  capture  it.  Directly 
however,  its  wings  became  still,  and  unaccountable 
stupor  appeared  to  steal  over  me,  my  head  drooped 
over  toward  the  left  till  it  touched  the  grass  and  for 
a  mom.ent  I  was  unconscious.  But  it  was  only  for 
a  moment  for  a  new  consciousness  almost  immediate- 
ly supervened.  It  was  a  consciousness  composed 
chiefly  of  subjective  sensations,  although  I  hold  that 
even  subjec^tive  sensations,  very  often  in  an  unper- 
ceived  manner,  receive  their  direction  and  stimula- 
tion to  activity  from  objects  around  us.  But  that  is 
a  question  of  psychology.  At  all  events  the  sensa- 
tions, I  am  about  to  relate  were  the  most  remark- 
able I  ever  experienced,  and  at  the  time  were  not 
accompanied  by  the  least  intimation,  that  they  were 
not  puitly  objective. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Professor. 

First  there  was  a  loud  singing  noise  in  my  right 
ear,  pitched  in  a  high  key.  Presently  this  pitch  be- 
came lower  and  the  sound  resembled  the  rattle  of 


*After  reacliing  liome  and  looking  over  tlie  notes  of 
tlie  survey,  I  found  the  number  of  the  stake  to  bo  be- 
tween 1175  and  1185,  and  it  was  set  on  Saturday  af- 
ternoon,  October   25,   1879. 


The  Professor  15 

rolling  car  wheels  on  a  track,  and  they  seemed  to 
be  approaching.  I  suddenly  realized  that  they  were 
advancing  to  the  place  where  I  lay,  and  greatly 
startled,  I  sprang  to  my  feet.  I  was  non  too  quick, 
for  a  train  of  four  cars  rolled  rapidly  over  the  very 
spot  where  I  had  lain.  I  saw  they  were  filled  with 
gay  well  dressed  people  evidentlj^  on  a  pleasure  ex- 
cursion. As  I  gazed  after  them  toward  the  west 
along  the  gleaming  rails,  I  remembered  there  was 
no  locomotive  with  the  train.  Of  course  not,  thought 
I,  the  road  is  run  by  electricity.  But  there  was  no 
overhead  wire  and  no  trolley.  O,  I  see,  these  cars 
are  propelled  by  storage  batteries  that  they  carry 
with  them.  I  felt  no  surprise  at  this,  nor  at  the  fact 
tht  the  road  had  been  built  after  all,  for  it  all 
seemed  to  be  a  matter  of  course.  Turning  toward 
the  east  where  the  line  penetrated  the  ridge  that  lies 
between  the  bay  and  the  lake,  I  saw  on  the  edge  of 
the  cut  the  tall  white  mile  post  so  illuminated  by  the 
direct  sunshine  that  the  number  24  in  large  black 
figures  could  be  made  out,  although  the  distance  vras 
a  third  of  a  mile  or  more.  While  I  was  still  gazing  in 
that  direction  I  suddenly  became  aware  of  a  strange 
looking  object  coming  through  the  cut  and  around 
the  curve.  It  was  a  four  wheeled  vehicle  something 
like  a  hand  car,  but  it  was  not  being  ''pumped"  nor 
were  there  any  handles  for  propelling  it  in  that  way. 
The  idea  suddenly  came  to  me  that  this  car  like 
the  first  I  had  seen,  was  propelled  by  a  storage  bat- 
tery concealed  somewhere  about  its  anatomy.  But 
the  interest  created  by  the  car  was  quickly  eclipsed 
by  that  inspired  by  its  occupant;  and  a  more  re- 
markable creature  I  never  read  about  or  dreamed 


lo  The  Lunarian  Professor 

about.  He  sat  bolt  upright  on  the  seat  at  the  rear 
end  of  the  car  and  while  he  was  at  a  distance,  I 
took  him  for  a  rather  stiff  dignified  and  odd  speci- 
men of  a  man.  But  as  he  approached  and  I  got  a 
better  opportunity  for  observing  details,  I  directly 
came  to  doubt  if  he  could  be  a  man  at  all.  When 
I  first  saw  him,  I  observed  what  seemed  to  be  a 
large  fan-like  appendage  projecting  from  his  back, 
which  I  then  took  to  be  some  peculiar  garment 
streaming  out  behind.  But  as  he  approached,  this 
appendage  separated  into  two,  and  spreading  out 
to  the  right  and  left  acted  like  brakes  against  the 
wind  and  rapidly  checked  the  speed  of  the  car,  re- 
minding me  of  the  action  of  the  wings  of  a  bird, 
when  it  alights.  Jn  short  to  my  great  astonishment 
it  turned  out  they  were  wrings.  I  instinctively  step- 
ped back  two  or  three  paces  to  allow  this  strange 
apparition  to  pass,  but  to  my  surprise  the  car  stop- 
ped directly  opposite  to  me  and  its  occupant  with 
a  slight  flutter  of  the  aforesaid  wings,  hopped  light- 
ly out  of  it  and  stood  beside  the  track  so  near  to 
me,  that  I  could  have  touched  him.  For  a  moment 
or  two  he  busied  himself  with  some  arrangement 
about  his  car,  the  nature  of  which  I  did  not  observe, 
as  my  attention  was  absorbed  chiefly  by  himself. 

In  the  description,  that  I  shall  now"  give  of  him, 
will  be  included  a  number  of  details  that  I  did  not 
observe  at  first,  but  which  showed  themselves  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  our  interview\  The  large  wings 
mentioned  above  were  at  least  six  feet  in  radius, 
and  each  was  nearly  a  semicircle.  They  could  be 
folded  like  a  fan  and  when  in  that  position  they  lay 
down  along  his  back  from  his  shoulders  to  his  heels 


The  Professor  17 

and  when  fully  extended  reached  from  his  heels  to 
a  point  nearly  five  feet  above  his  head.  They  were 
of  a  soft  semitransparent,  but  thick  and  tough  mem- 
branous material,  full  of  veins  and  nerves  and  sup- 
ported by  stiff  elastic  ribs,  radiating  from  their  ar- 
ticulation at  the  shoulder  to  the  circumference. 

Besides  these  wings,  he  had  two  other  pairs  simi- 
lar in  texture,  but  much  smaller.  One  pair  v/as  at- 
tached just  in  front  of  the  principal  pair  and  or- 
dinarily they  were  directed  upward  beside  his  head 
and  reaching  above  it.  But  he  could  also  extend 
them  laterally,  so  as  *to  cover  his  face,  as  well  as  the 
back  of  his  head  and  did  so  repeatedly  while  he  was 
with  me,  apparently  to  shield  himself  from  the  raj^s 
of  the  sun.  The  other  two  were  attached  just  below 
the  main  wings  and  extended  downwards  alongside 
of  the  body  to  the  feet.  But  they  too  were  extensi- 
ble laterally  and  could  be  made  to  cover  the  entire 
lower  half  of  the  body.  In  short,  these  four  minor 
wings  were  equivalent  to  clothes,  and  the  numerous 
nerves  by  which  they  were  traversed,  indicated  that 
they  were  also  delicate  organs  of  the  sensations  of 
heat  and  touch. 

In  addition  to  these  wings,  there  were  six  other 
limbs,  two  of  which  were  legs  and  two  w^ere  arms, 
in  much  the  same  position  in  which  they  occur  in 
man.  The  third  pair  of  limbs  were  attached  to  the 
thorax  between  the  arms  and  legs,  and  were  or- 
dinarily folded  across  the  thorax.  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  these  limbs  could  be  used  either  as  hands 
or  feet  as  occasion  required,  but  while  he  was  with 
me  he  made  little  other  use  of  them  than  to  occa- 
sionally give  me  a  sly  poke  with  one  of  them — usual- 


18  The  Liniarian  Professor 

ly  the  right — in  the  side — usually  the  left  side — about 
the  position  of  the  second  rib  from  the  bottom.  As 
these  gestures  always  came  about  in  connection  with 
some  humorous  or  ludicrous  idea,  it  occurred  to  me 
in  a  whimsical  way  to  call  these  limbs  his  jokers. 
His  head  was  immense,  possessing,  I  should  saj% 
double  the  capacity  of  the  largest  human  head.  The 
top  part  was  globular,  and  the  lower  part,  which 
might  be  called  the  face,  was  long  and  wedge  shap- 
ed, tapering  down  to  the  jaws.  The  jaws  were  strong 
and  well  set  with  teeth  and  worked  laterally  instead 
of  vertically  as  with  us,  and  the  slit  forming  the 
mouth  was  vertical  and  in  the  middle.  There  was 
no  chin.  The  eyes  were  placed  just  above  the  mouth 
and  at  the  base  of  the  upper  dome  shaped  portion  of 
the  head.  They  were  of  enormous  size  fully  two 
inches  in  diameter,  half  globular  and  set  far  apart, 
forming  as  it  were  the  corners  of  the  face.  They 
were  not  movable  as  ours  are,  because  every  part 
of  the  surface  of  the  eye  was  equally  good  to  see 
with;  and  their  position  enabled  their  owner  to  see 
three-fourths  of  the  horizon  without  turning  his 
head.  The  face  had  not  one  particle  of  expression 
or  mobility  to  it,  but  this  was  compensated  a  hun- 
dred times  by  the  expression  of  the  eyes.  Their 
usual  expression,  when  at  rest,  was  one  of  supreme 
kindliness  and  benevolence  with  a  slight  element  of 
humor.  But  when  the  mind  was  in  activity,  the  eyes 
beamed  with  good  natured  wit,  were  suffused  with 
tender  sentiment  or  flashed  with  intellectual  brillian- 
cy to  a  degree  I  would  never  have  imagined  possi- 
ble. Under  each  of  the  wings  there  was  an  opening 
leading  into  the  body,  those  of  the  middle  wings 


Tlie  Professor  19 

being  nearly  three-fourths  of  an  inch  in  diameter, 
and  the  others  very  much  smaller.  All  were  pro- 
tected by  movable  lips.  I  soon  discovered  that  these 
were  for  the  purpose  of  breathing,  the  air  being 
constantly  inhaled  and  exhaled  through  them.  I 
have  no  doubt  the  lining  membrance  of  these  breath- 
ing tubes  was  sensitive  to  odors  and  was  therefore 
an  organ  of  smell.  As  to  ears,  there  was  one  plain- 
ly to  be  seen  on  the  upper  part  of  each  arm,  and 
I  observed  him  move  his  arm  in  the  proper  direc- 
tions to  catch  the  sound.  In  the  long  conversation 
I  had  with  him  I  cannot  say  that  I  heard  any  artic- 
ulate voice.  There  was  a  slight  humming  noise,  ris- 
ing and  falling  in  very  agreeable  musical  cadences, 
and  these  appeared  to  accompany  the  enunciation  of 
his  ideas  and  thoughts  when  he  addressed  me.  When 
I  spoke  to  him,  I  used  articulate  words  in  plain  Eng- 
lish and  he  appeared  to  hear  in  the  ordinary  way. 
But  his  thoughts  came  to  me  like  waves  or  pulsations 
and  appeared  to  be  injected  bodily  into  my  brain 
without  any  distinct  sensation  of  hearing  them.  In 
short  I  directly  came  to  perceive  that  it  was  a  case  of 
the  telepathic  transfer  of  ideas,  experiments  in  which 
are  known  to  most  people,  but  which  was  in  this 
case  vastly  more  complete  and  perfect  than  I  had 
ever  imagined  possible.  In  the  report  of  the  conver- 
sation between  us  that  I  give  herein  it  is  to  be  un- 
derstood that  I  do  not  quote  his  language,  but  give 
the  impression  of  his  thoughts  upon  me  in  my  own 
language,  and  the  best  I  have  been  able  to  do,  I  am 
sensible,  forms  a  very  inadequate  dress  in  which  to 
set  off  the  beauty  of  his  sentiment  or  the  strength 
of  his  reason. 


20  The  Lunarian  Professor 

'VMien  my  visitor  had  finished  whatever  arrange- 
ment he  was  making  with  his  car,  he  turned  partly 
around  and  I  saw  he  had  in  his  hand  a  small  spool 
of  copper  wire,  two  strands  from  which  connected 
with  the  car.  Next  he  performed  some  slight  manip- 
ulation with  his  coil  of  wire,  the  nature  of  which  I 
could  not  make  out,  but  which  produced  the  surpris- 
ing result,  that  the  car  slowly  rose  from  the  track 
continuing  upward  till  stopped  by  the  wire,  then 
my  visitor  drew^  it  gently  to  one  side  and  pushing 
a  stout  iron  pin  into  the  ground,  he  attached  the 
spool  and  coil  to  it  and  left  it  there,  picketed  out, 
precisely  as  a  cow-boy  pickets  his  mule,  except  that 
the  car  floated  in  the  air  gently  pulling  on  its  tether. 
I  had  for  some  moments  been  casting  about  in  my 
mind  for  some  appropriate  manner  in  which  to  ad- 
dress my  singular  visitor.  The  more  I  observed  his 
actions,  the  higher  my  opinion  rose  of  his  character, 
abilities  and  position  in  the  scale  of  existence.  Koyal 
and  aristocratic  titles,  such  as  Your  Majesty,  My 
Lord  etc.,  are  very  awkward  in  the  mouth  of  an 
American  and  seemed  by  no  means  sure  to  be  aprop- 
riate  in  this  case.  Then  I  thought  of  our  American 
titles.  General,  Colonel,  Major,  Judge,  Squire,  Gov- 
ernor, none  of  which  of  course  would  do.  But  the 
surprise  and  curiosity  excited  by  this  performance 
of  picketing  the  car  in  the  air  would  in  another 
minute  have  overcome  the  tension  of  diffidence  and 
doubt  and  I  should  have  addressed  him  as  something, 
even  if  no  better  title  than  plain  Mister  occurred  to 
me. 

But  he  saved  me  this  necessity,  by  opening  the 


The   Professor  21 

conversation  himself.  He  seemed  to  know  what  I 
had  been  thinking  of. 

*'A  title  of  address",  said  he,  ''should  be  signifi- 
cant of  facts.  It  is  ridiculous  to  call  a  man  Hon- 
orable, because  you  have  sent  him  to  the  legislature, 
or  to  congress,  or  another  person  'Majesty'  whose 
understanding  is  below  mediocrity.  You  may  call 
me,  'Sir,'  which  title  as  you  know  means  simply  an 
older  person  and  I  will  call  you  by  some  title,  that 
means  young — if  it  means  quite  young,  it  will  still 
be  very  appropriate,  eh?" 

This  was  accompanied,  by  a  queer,  but  decidedly 
jolly  and  good  natured  expression  of  the  eyes  and  a 
gentle  poke  with  his  right  middle  hand  described 
above. 

"Then,"  said  I,  "you  think  you  are  the  older. 
The  fact  is,  I  am  so  well  preserved,  that  almost 
everyone  rates  me  ten  or  fifteen  years  younger  than 
I  am,  and  perhaps  you  do." 

"I  am  nineteen,"  he  said. 

"Why,"  I  exclaimed,  "I  am  more  than  three 
times  that  old." 

"Nevertheless,  I  am  very  much  older  than  you," 
he  replied. 

"You  talk  in  riddles,"  said  I,  **I  don't  under- 
stand you." 

"Well,  I  v/ill  explain.  You  understand,  that 
every  race  is  made  by  its  environment  and  the  same 
is  true  of  each  individual  of  the  race." 

"Certainly,  that  is  my  pet  theory." 

"Well,  the  environment  of  the  race  is  in  reality, 
the  environment  of  every  individual  in  it,  for  every 
individual  inherits  the  impress  made  upon  the  race 


22  The  Lunarian  Professor 

during  all  past  ages.  For  this  reason  a  human  in- 
fant just  born  is  a  being  of  far  greater  experience 
than  a  mature  elephant;  the  experience  of  the  race 
is  his  and  it  is  expressed  in  the  structure  of  his 
brain  and  body.  In  like  manner  an  individual  of 
our  race  has  the  long  life  of  his  race  behind  liim  and 
is  older  at  birth  than  a  human  being  is  at  80,  becaus»i 
our  race  has  a  vastly  longer  history  and  experience 
than  yours." 

*'Your  idea  is  ingenious,  but  yet  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  a  mature  elephant  knows  more  than  a 
new  born  human  infant." 

''That  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  knowl- 
edge," he  replied.  *'The  most  knowing  person  has 
no  knowledge  when  he  is  asleep,  but  he  possesses 
the  potentiality  of  getting  it  when  he  wakes  up,  and 
when  he  is  awake,  his  knowledge  extends  only  to 
the  things  about  which  his  brain  is  active  for  the 
moment,  while  as  to  other  things,  the  most  that  can 
be  said  is  that,  he  may  possess  the  potentiality  of 
knowing  them  when  the  activity  of  his  brain  is  di- 
rected to  them,  by  appropriate  stimulations.  In 
like  manner  the  potentiality  of  all  the  knowledge 
belonging  to  his  race,  slumbers  in  the  new  born  in- 
fant; and  as  he  gradually  wakes  up  in  the  process 
of  his  growth  and  development,  this  knowledge,  up- 
on proper  stimulation  of  the  brain,  flashes  into  view. 
Therefore  everything  depends  upon  the  race  to 
which  one  belongs.  Our  race  had  already  reached 
a  high  degree  of  cultivation  before  your's  was  dis- 
tinguishable from  four  footed  beasts." 

My  disposition  to  generalize,  unwittingly  influ- 
enced no  doubt  by  my  early  Sunday  School  educa- 


The  Professor  23 

tion,  here  led  me  to  make  an  observation,  that  a 
moment  later  I  perceived  to  be  crude  and  ill  consid- 
ered. It  was  to  the  effect  that  this  great  age  to  which 
his  race  had  attained,  had  made  their  superior  men- 
tal development  possible  and  had  given  the  time 
necessary  for  their  physical  evolution  through  and 
from  the  human  form. 

His  answer  to  this  was  a  loud  and  prolonged, 
ha  ha  ha !  That  is  to  say,  I  heard  nothing  quite  like 
that,  but  was  impressed  by  a  sensation  that  his  men- 
tal state  exhibited  in  human  expression  would  be 
laughter  loud  and  long. 

Said  he;  *'the  conceit  of  the  human  race  is  the 
laughing  stock  of  all  our  people,  but  you  are  a  very 
young  race  and  you  will  know  a  great  deal  more 
when  you  get  older.  Individuals  of  our  race  and 
kindred  races  have  visited  the  earth,  and  allowed 
themselves  to  be  seen.  And  descriptions  of  them 
have  been  attempted  by  some  of  your  ancient  seers.  * 

The  human  race  having  become  dominant  on 
earth,  they  have  entirely  overrated  their  importance 
and  not  only  fancy  that  they  w^ill  some  day  own  the 
rest  of  the  solar  system,  but  imagine  that  they  will 
sprout  wings  and  develope  into  beings  like  us;  but 
any  of  you  that  have  studied  natural  history  and 
your  new  theories  of  evolution,  ought  to  know  that 
beings  having  twelve  limbs  could  never  be  evolved 
from  a  race  having  but  four.  The  only  possible 
evolution  by  which  your  race  could  ever  possess 
wings,  would  be  the  conversion  through  use  and 
habit  of  your  arms  into  wings,  which  has  actually 
occurred  in  the  case  of  your  bats  and  birds. 

The  families  on  earth  that  are  related  to  and 


24  The  Lunarian  Professor 

resemble  us  are  the  insect  tribes.  In  fact  we  trace 
our  origin  back  to  an  ancestry,  which  according  to 
many  of  our  best  scientists  is  exactly  parallel  with 
that  of  your  insects,  and  they  alone  of  mundane  in- 
habitants could  ever  expect  to  evolve  a  posterity 
at  all  like  us,  and  they  never  will,  for  the  conditions 
on  earth  will  forever  keep  them  in  a  subordinate 
position  to  the  present  dominant  race." 

During  this  speech,  notwithstanding  its  intense 
interest  to  me  I  was  becoming  impatient  and  ner- 
vous with  the  apprehension  that  he  might  leave  me 
without  telling  me  where  he  was  from  and  how  he 
made  that  car  of  his  disregard  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion. In  the  solution  of  this  last  riddle  especially  I 
could  readily  see  a  utilitarian  outcome  of  overwhelm- 
ing importance.  I  am  afraid  that  my  questions  were 
put  with  an  undignified  eagerness  and  precipitancy, 
v/hich  no  doubt  he  observed,  for  he  first  proceeded 
to  say  that  he  had  much  information  to  communi- 
cate to  me  and  was  glad  to  see  me  desirous  of  re- 
ceiving it. 

"You  understand  the  law  of  the  attraction  of 
gravitation" — I  nodded  assent — *'but  you  know 
nothing  of  the  repulsion  of  gravitation."  Indeed  I 
did  not.    I  had  never  heard  of  such  a  thing. 

He  continued:  *'A11  polar  attractions  are  ac- 
companied by  repulsions.  This  you  see  in  magnet- 
ism and  in  electricity,  and  it  is  equally  true  in  grav- 
itation. The  force  with  which  bodies  fall  toward 
each  other  consists  merely  of  the  difference  between 
the  attractive  and  the  repulsive  force.  Ordinarily 
the  attractive  force  takes  hold  of  the  near  ends  of 
the  molecules  of  ether  contained  in  solid  or  fluid 


The  Professor  25 

bodies,  and  the  repulsive  force  affects  only  the  fur- 
ther ends  of  the  same  molecules,  so  that  by  reason 
of  the  difference  in  the  distances  over  which  these 
two  forces  operate  the  attractive  force  always  over- 
powers repulsion.  But  we  have  discovered  a  way 
by  which  the  action  of  these  forces  is  reversed,  so 
that  the  w^ork  of  repulsion  is  performed  on  the  near 
end  of  the  molecules  and  attraction  on  the  further 
end,  and  then  attraction  being  the  weaker  of  the 
two,  the  body,  as  a  whole,  is  repelled.  We  imitate 
in  fact  the  action  that  takes  place  when  the  attrac- 
tion between  two  electrified  bodies  turns  to  repul- 
sion. Repulsion  also  takes  place  between  the  sun 
and  the  tails  of  comets.  The  comet's  tail  is  attract- 
ed toward  the  nucleus  of  the  comet  and  at  the  same 
time  repelled  from  the  sun.  We  have  not  been  able 
to  make  bodies  discriminating  like  that  in  their  at- 
tractions. 

'^But,"  said  I,  ''it  must  take  as  much  power  to 
make  this  change  as  the  changed  condition  yields 
after  it  is  made  and  I  cannot  see  where  you  sjet  tlse 
pov/er;  you  cannot  make  something  out  of  nothing.'' 

''Very  true,"  said  he,  ''but  the  resistance  to  the 
change  is  in  reality— very  small,  and  it  is  accom- 
plished, even  by  neuro-magnetism  in  a  wonder- 
fully simple  manner.  The  proportion  of  force  re- 
quired to  do  it  is  no  greater  than  that  required  to 
move  the  slide  valve  in  the  steam  chest  of  one  of 
your  steam  engines,  by  which  the  enormous  force 
of  the  steam  is  alternately  shifted  to  first  one  end 
and  then  the  other  of  the  cylinder.  We  can  generate 
the  force  required  for  this,  in  our  own  tissues  and 
it  accumulates  in  electric  organs  possessed  by  us 


26  The  Lunarian  Professor 

similar  to  those  of  your  electric  eels.  I  will  show 
you. ' ' 

AYith  that  he  reached  out  and  touched  me  on  the 
mouth.  There  w^as  a  flash  and  a  sensation  as  if  a 
coal  of  fire  had  touched  me,  and  a  smart  shock  pass- 
ed through  my  limbs.  I  was  easily  enough  con- 
vinced that  he  possessed  large  electric  storage  capac- 
ity, and  he  told  me  he  could  give  me  a  shock  100 
times  as  strong  as  the  one  I  had  received.  I  was 
willing  to  take  his  word  for  that.  But  I  was  by  no 
means  satisfied  v/ith  his  explanation  of  the  reversal 
of  the  forces  in  gravitation.  It  seemed  to  me  to 
involve  a  mechanical  fallacy  and  1  half  suspected 
he  purposely  avoided  giving  me  the  true  explana- 
tion. Although  I  have  since  given  the  subject  con- 
siderable thought  I  have  not  been  able  to  clear  it 
up.  Theorize  as  I  might  however,  there  was  the  fact 
that  gravitation  vras  somehow  suspended,  in  the  case 
of  the  car. 

I  said  to  him  earnestly,  that  I  would  give  any- 
thing I  possessed  to  be  able  to  understand  and 
apply  these  principles  as  he  did. 

*'I  have  no  doubt  at  all  of  that",  said  he,  *'but 
it  is  our  secret,  and  I  could  commit  no  more  heinous 
act  of  treason  against  my  people  or  our  planet,  than 
by  divulging  it. 

*'For  goodness  sake,"  I  exclaimed,  *'tell  me  what 
planet  you  inhabit,  and  what  harm  could  result  from 
giving  this  invaluable  information." 

*'My  home  is  the  moon,"  he  said  quitely,  ''and 
I  have  ever  since  vrondered  how  I  came  to  receive 
the  announcemoiit  without  the  slightest  degree  of 


The  Professor  27 

surprise  as  if  it  were  an  every  day  occurence  to 
meet  people  from  the  moon. 

"The  discovery  you  wish  me  to  reveal  to  you,  was 
made  by  our  ancestors  over  a  million  years  ago," 
he  went  on,  *'the  population  of  the  moon  was  then 
as  great  as  the  planet  would  support  in  comfort, 
and  its  regulation  and  maintenance  had  been  reduc- 
ed to  a  strictly  scientific  basis.  It  was  seen  at  once 
and  soon  experimentally  proved  that  our  people 
could  by  the  use  of  this  principle  easily  visit  the 
earth,  and  if  the  discovery  should  be  communicated 
to  the  earth  people,  there  would  be  nothing  to  pre- 
vent flooding  the  moon  with  an  undesirable  horde 
of  adventurers,  w^ho  v/ould  like  a  swarm  of  seventeen 
year  locusts  proceed  to  lay  claim  to  everything  in 
sight  and  seriously  disturb  the  lunar  peace  and  pros- 
perity. And  so  the  communication  of  this  secret  was 
forbidden  on  pain  of  the  terrible  punishment  of  pro- 
jection." 

My  inquiring  look  showed  xhat  I  did  not  under- 
stand this,  and  he  continued. 

''Projection  is  the  extreme  penalty  of  our  laws. 
In  it  the  criminal  is  locked  up  in  a  spherical  shell 
of  cast  iron  having  two  small  glass  windows  and 
famished  with  compressed  air  in  alumina  flasks, 
and  food  sufficient  to  last  from  a  few  days  to  two 
years  according  to  the  severity  of  the  sentence,  the 
larger  amount  of  food  going  with  the  more  severe 
sentence.  After  he  is  fastened  in,  the  repulsion  of 
gravitation  is  turned  on  and  the  ball  instantly  pro- 
jects iteslf  into  space  bounding  ofiP  at  a  terrific  speed. 
Yc.'t  no  matter  v/hat  direction  it  takes  it  can  never 
come  into  collision  with  any  body  whether  planet  or 


28  The  Lunarian   Professor 

sun,  but  whenever  it  approches  one  it  is  instantly 
repelled,  and  thus  it  continues  to  be  hurled  from 
one  to  another  forever,  and  the  longer  the  criminal 
lives  to  perceive  and  reflect  that  he  is  an  outcast 
from  all  worlds,  the  greater  his  punishment  is  sup- 
posed to  be.  Is  it  a  theory  of  some  of  our  scientists 
that  a  projected  person  continues  to  be  repelled  from 
sun  to  sun  till  at  last  he  reaches  the  edge  of  crea- 
tion and  is  hurled  completely  out  of  the  universe. 
However  this  may  be,  the  friends  of  a  projected  per- 
son never  know  where  he  is." 

**I  hope,*'  said  I,  **  that  you  are  not  often  under 
the  necessity  of  inflicting  such  a  terrible  punishment 
as  that.'* 

*'No  one  has  been  projected  for  over  forty  years, 
but  500,000  years  ago  the  punishment  was  frequent- 
ly resorted  to." 

*'In  traversing  the  space  between  the  earth  and 
the  moon,  I  suppose  you  will  first  move  by  repulsion 
from  the  earth?" 

*'Yes,  I  use  repulsion  for  the  first  part  of  the 
journey.  This  gives  me  a  rapid  send  off  from  the 
earth.  My  speed  constantly  increasing  till  I  reach 
the  distance  of  216,000  miles  from  the  earth,  at  this 
point  the  repulsion  of  the  moon — which  by  the  way 
is  exerted  against  me  from  the  time  I  leave  the  earth 
— is  just  equal  to  that  of  the  earth,  but  the  momen- 
tum acquired  by  that  time  carries  me  almost  home, 
the  moon's  repulsions  constantly  diminishing  the 
speed  and  at  last  bringing  me  to  a  stand  still  or 
sheering  me  off  to  one  side.  It  is  then  necessary  to 
turn  on  attraction,  which  causes  me  to  approach 


The    Professor  29 

the  moon  with  a  speed  which  is  easily  checked  and 
regulated  by  using  repulsion  when  necessary." 

''The  terrific  speed  with  which  you  travel  or 
fall,  as  we  might  say,  from  one  planet  to  another, 
I  should  think  would  overpov/er  you— take  your 
breath  away." 

''We  have  to  guard  against  this,  while  we  tra- 
verse the  atmosphere,  both  at  this  and  at  the  other 
end  of  the  journey,  but  once  clear  of  the  atmosphere 
we  fall  through  empty  space  without  the  slightest 
sensation  of  motion  and  realize  that  we  are  going 
only  by  the  rapid  decrease  in  the  apparent  size  of 
the  globe  we  are  leaving  and  increase  of  the  one  we 
approach.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  more  thrill- 
ing experience  than  is  conveyed  by  the  perception 
of  the  growth  in  a  few  hours  of  your  earth  from  a 
ball  six  feet  in  diameter  as  it  appears  to  us  at  the 
start,  to  the  vast  and  illimitable  expanse  of  variegat- 
ed beauty  it  gets  to  be  before  we  reach  it. 

On  the  journey,  it  is  necessary  to  guard  against 
the  blistering  heat  of  the  sun's  rays  upon  the  side  on 
which  they  fall,  and  the  intense  cold  which  we  en- 
counter on  the  shady  side;  and  we  must  look  out 
that  neither  ourselves  nor  any  of  the  loose  articles 
we  carry  in  the  car  such  as  our  flasks  of  compressed 
air,  our  food  etc.  are  repelled  from  the  car  and  al- 
lowed to  fall  to  earth  or  moon  by  their  ordinary 
gravity,  for  the  change  to  repulsion  only  applies  to 
the  iron  part  of  the  car  and  not  other  things.  It 
cannot  be  applied  to  wood  or  to  animal  or  vegetable 
tissue  etc.  We  guard  against  all  these  contingencies 
by  having  a  stout  cover  over  our  ear,  supported  by 
steel  hoops,  when  we  are  on  an  intermundane  trip. 


30  Tlie  Lunarian   Professor 

When  we  travel  on  the  ground,  this  is  folded  up  and 
not  used." 

Then  I  suppose  the  wheels  of  your  car  come  into 
use  when  you  travel  on  the  ground,  for  I  can  see 
no  use  for  them  in  your  "intermundane"  journeys." 

' '  That  is  true.  This  car  I  have  with  me  is  my  or- 
dinary carriage  at  home.  It  is  a  railroad  car  as  you 
see  by  the  flanges  on  the  w^heels.  Railroads  with 
us  are  public  free  highways,  built  and  maintained 
by  the  state.  They  have  from  four  to  twelve  tracks. 
Every  person  who  is  qualified  by  his  education  and 
training  to  manage  a  car  is  furnished  with  one  by 
the  state.  The  propelling  power  is  nothing  but 
gravity  either  in  attraction  or  repulsion,  the  former 
being  used  on  down  grades  and  the  latter  on  up 
grades,  the  car  having  rollers  that  hook  under  a 
flange  at  the  top  of  the  rail  to  prevent  the  car  from 
rising  bodily  from  the  track. 

The  surface  of  our  planet  is  very  rough,  but  still 
the  grading  for  roads  is  light,  as  it  is  possible  to 
ascend  grades  of  100  per  cent  or  even  steeper.  Level 
grades  on  our  roads  are  always  avoided,  and  in  dis- 
tricts where  this  cannot  be  done,  we  use  electric 
roads. 

The  cars  are  so  constructed  that  different  parts 
are  electrically  insulated  from  each  other,  by  which 
means  a  part  of  the  car  can  be  placed  under  the  in- 
fluence of  attraction  and  the  rest  under  that  of  re- 
pulsion. This  is  done  on  down  grades.  The  weight 
of  the  load  and  of  part  of  the  car  pulling  down  and 
the  weight  of  the  rest  of  the  car  holding  back.  It 
is  always  arranged  to  have  the  car  heavier  than  its 
load,  and  the  driver  can  regulate  the  force  used  by 


The  Professor  31 

balancing  one  against  the  other,  so  that  a  car  of 
many  tons  shall  press  on  the  rails  with  the  weight  of 
only  a  very  few  pounds.  Thus  the  wear  and  tear 
on  road  beds  and  rails  is  almost  nothing  and  the 
roads  are  practically  everlasting. 


CHAPTER  III. 
The  Moon  and  Its  People. 

**I  am  amazed/'  said  I,  *'to  learn  that  the  moon 
is  inhabited  and  by  a  race  apparently  m-ore  advanced 
than  our  ov/n.  Our  astronomers  have  assured  us 
that  the  moon  is  a  desolate  played  out  barren  world 
without  air  or  water;  totally  unfit  for  inhabitants." 

''The  astronomers  could  only  report  what  they 
could  see,  and  the  side  of  the  moon  visible  from  the 
earth  is  as  they  describe  it,  but  they  have  never  seen 
the  further  side  and  never  will,  for  that  side  is  al- 
ways turned  from  the  earth.  But  the  population  of 
the  moon  is  not  far  from  half  that  of  the  earth  and 
the  people  live  in  greater  comfort.  But  there  is  no 
population  living  on  the  surface  on  the  hemisphere 
facing  the  earth — I  see  this  puzzles  you,"  he  said. 

It  certainly  did.  ' '  Do  you  mean  that  the  Lunari- 
ans live  under  ground  ? "  I  inquired. 

"I  will  explain.  The  moon  is  a  much  lighter 
body  than  the  earth  bulk  for  bulk,  a  cubic  yard  of 
it  containing  on  an  average  only  six  tenths  as  much 
matter  as  an  avera2:e  yard  of  earth.    The  reason  of 


o2  Tlie  Lunarian   Professor 

this  is  that  a  very  large  part  of  the  moon's  bulk  is 
made  up  of  interstices,  caves  and  openings.  Now 
it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  hemisphere  of  the 
moon  facing  the  earth  is  much  lighter  than  the 
further  one,  so  much  so  that  the  center  of  gravity 
is  33  miles  further  from  this  side  of  the  moon  than 
from  the  further  side.  This  fact  has  been  suspected 
by  some  of  your  astronomers.  The  consequence  of 
it  is  that  the  sea  has  all  gone  to  the  further  hemi- 
sphere, and  the  near  hemisphere  is  in  the  highest 
place,  about  33  miles  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  It 
is  much  as  if  a  concave  cap,  the  material  of  which 
is  33  miles  thick  at  the  center  and  tapers  to  zero  all 
round  the  rim,  were  fitted  on  to  a  sphere.  This  rim 
is  at  the  edge  of  the  moon,  as  seen  from  the  earth. 
Our  atmosphere  like  yours,  gets  lighter  as  we  as- 
cend and  is  too  thin  to  support  life  at  a  height  of 
five  miles,  so  that  the  great  plateaus  of  our  hither 
hemisphere  are  over  20  miles  higher  than  any  ap- 
preciable atmosphere.  So  you  can  see  the  impossi- 
bility of  life  on  the  hither  surface  of  the  moon  if 
you  reflect  a  moment  what  the  conditions  would  be 
on  a  mundane  plateau  33  miles  above  the  sea  level. 
Your  highest  mountains  are  only  between  five  and 
six  miles  high,  and  you  know  the  impossibility  of 
either  vegetable  or  animal  life  at  even  that  altitude. 
On  the  earth  such  elevations  are  regions  of  per- 
petual snow,  and  the  hither  surface  of  the  moon 
would  be  such  a  region  if  it  possessed  water  and  an 
atmosphere.  But  while  the  surface  on  this  side  is 
uninhabitable,  there  are  immense  tracts  of  under- 
ground space,  that  have  been  converted  into  habit- 
able territorv.     This  underground  country  lies  so 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  33 

far  below  the  surface  that  it  is  practically  near  the 
sea  level  throughout.  It  is  approached  at  all  parts 
of  the  rim  of  the  cap  just  described,  and  there  are 
many  thousands  of  tunnels  entering  it  all  round  this 
rim,  especially  in  the  equatorial  parts  of  the  moon. 
A  great  amount  of  labor  has  been  expended,  not  only 
on  these  entrances,  but  on  the  internal  cavities  to 
which  they  lead;  but  compared  with  the  work  per- 
formed for  us  by  nature,  our  own  labor  is  but  an 
insignificant  item — hardly  so  much  as  the  labor  of 
your  race  in  fitting  up  the  earth  for  your  residence. 
The  entrances  are  all  volcanic  craters,  and  the  vast 
cavities  to  which  they  lead,  were  excavated  long 
ages  ago  by  volcanic  action.  The  material  blown 
out  of  the  volcanoes,  mostly  fell  upon  the  hither  side 
of  the  moon  increasing  the  bulk  of  the  cap;  most 
of  the  volcanoes  being  on  this  side.  But  even  the 
material  thrown  from  the  lateral  regions  was  drawn 
this  way  by  the  attraction  of  the  earth  and  after 
describing  a  longer  or  shorter  curve,  fell  on  the 
hither  side  of  the  moon. 

Nearly  all  the  moon's  volcanoes  are  on  the  hither 
portion,  the  volcanic  region  occupying  about  two- 
thirds  of  the  whole  surface  of  the  moon.  The  weight 
of  bodies  on  the  hither  side  is  appreciably  less  than 
on  the  further  side.  These  facts  are  supposed  to  be 
due  to  the  earth's  attraction  neutralizing  that  of  the 
moon  and  having  resulted  in  building  up  the  vast 
protuberance  or  table  land  (of  light  and  porous  ma- 
terial) on  this  side,  the  latter  is  often  called,  by  us 
the  ''Mundane  Hump',,  in  recognition  of  the  earth's 
instrumentality  in  its  formation.  The  interior  con- 
tinent is  often  spoken  of  as  the  "Pocket"  by  the 


34  The  Lunarian   Professor 

people  on  the  further  side;     or  sometimes  as  the 
"Chest",  and  the  "Hump"  is  called  its  Lid. 

The  further  side  of  the  moon  is  called  the  Ex- 
terior Continent,  but  often  humorously  designated 
by  the  people  of  the  ''Pocket",  as  the  Out-door  Con- 
tinent/' 

**But,"  said  I,  *'what  a  strange  life  it  must  be 
in  those  underground  cavities.  I  suppose  of  course 
you  can  have  nothing  better  than  artificial  light 
there?" 

''True,"  he  said,  ''our  light  is  mostly  artificial, 
but  it  is  made  as  bright  as  we  can  bear  it.  It  is  elec- 
tric light,  but  it  is  regulated  to  be  quite  equal  to 
sun  light  and  it  never  goes  out.  There  is  no  night 
in  the  underground  country,  as  there  is  outside." 

"This  is  wonderful! — ^But  where  do  you  get  the 
power  to  furnish  this  light?  Have  you  got  water- 
falls and  coal  beds  down  there?" 

"We  have  many  waterfalls,  but  do  not  utilize 
them  to  any  great  extent  for  their  power  and  we 
have  a  considerable  amount  of  coal,  which  however 
we  do  not  use  for  fuel,  but  reserve  for  food  purposes, 
to  be  drawn  upon  as  may  be  required." 

"Is  stone  coal  what  you  have  to  eat  then?"  I 
here  broke  in.  "With  exasperating  deliberation,  he 
gave  me  an  admonitory  poke  with  his  right  joker. 

"One  thing  at  a  time — one  thing  at  a  time.  Yon 
wanted  to  know  where  we  get  power  to  turn  into 
electric  lighting.  It  is  the  power  of  gravity.  If 
one  of  your  perpetual  motion  cranks  understood 
the  secret  of  the  use  of  the  repulsion  of  gravitation, 
he  could  contrive  a  perpetual  motion  in  an  hour  and 
a  half.    "We  have  many  forms  of  such  machines  that 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  t^ 

have  been  in  use  for  ages.  One  of  these  is  the  pen- 
dulum machine.  This  consists  of  a  pendulum  weigh- 
ing from  a  few  pounds  to  many  tons  and  so  contriv- 
ed that  when  it  reaches  the  loAvest  part  of  its  swing 
it  automatically  turns  on  the  repulsion  of  gravita- 
tion, which  reinforces  its  momentum  on  the  ascend- 
ing part  of  its  arc,  enough  to  compensate  for  the 
work  done  by  it  and  the  friction  of  the  machine. 
Another  machine  is  the  oscillating  balance.  This 
consists  of  weights  at  each  end  of  a  beam  balanced 
in  the  middle  and  so  governed  by  an  automatic 
shunting  apparatus,  that  one  of  the  weights  is  un- 
der the  influence  of  attraction  while  the  other  is  un- 
der that  of  repulsion.  When  the  former  has  reach- 
ed the  bottom  of  its  oscillation  and  the  latter  the  top, 
the  force  is  reversed  in  each  and  so  the  motion  is 
perpetual. 

Another  machine  is  the  Automatic  hammer,  which 
is  a  literal  hammer  though  it  may  weigh  many  tons. 
The  end  of  its  handle  is  confined  by  a  stationary 
wrist,  while  the  hammer  rises  and  falls  under  the 
effect  of  repulsion  and  attraction  automatically  al- 
ternated by  shunting  apparatus.  Then  we  have  the 
vertical  parabolic  railway;  which  consists  of  two 
steep  inclined  tracks,  meeting  each  other  at  the 
foot.  A  car  runs  alternately  down  one  and  up  the 
other  on  much  the  same  principle  as  the  pendulum 
machine.  There  are  numerous  other  machines,  but 
they  all  operate  on  the  same  principle,  just  as  you 
have  many  forms  of  water  wheels,  all  operated  by 
the  weight  of  water.  So  you  see  our  power  costs 
us  nothing  at  all  after  the  machine  is  built,  except 
for  the  oil  for  its  lubrication.     As  these  machines 


36  The  Lunarian    Professor 

have  been  known  and  used  by  us  for  many  thousands 
of  years,  you  may  readily  perceive  what  changes 
we  have  been  able  to  make  in  all  those  conditions 
of  our  planet,  that  relate  to  our  comfort  and  general 
purposes.  You  may  add  to  this,  that  any  exertion 
we  make  relating  to  the  movement  of  heavy  bodies, 
is  ten  times  as  effectual  as  the  same  exertion  made 
on  earth.  "Water  and  air  with  us  are  only  one-sixth 
as  heavy  as  on  earth,  and  the  average  soil  and  rocks 
one-tenth  as  heavy;  so  that  our  laborers  handle 
wheelbarrows  holding  a  cubic  yard  of  material  as 
easily  as  yours  do  their  little  barrows  containing 
two  or  three  cubic  feet.'' 

Here  I  interposed  again.  **You  speak  of  your 
atmosphere  being  only  one-sixth  as  heavy  as  ours. 
That  agrees  w^ith  what  our  astronomers  have  told 
us,  and  they  have  pointed  out  that  even  if  there  is 
such  an  atmosphere,  on  the  moon,  animal  life  like 
ours  is  not  possible  there,  because  the  air  is  too 
thin.'' 

''Your  astronomers  do  not  consider  that  animal 
life  and  activity  depend,  not  on  the  amount  of  air 
the  animal  is  surrounded  by,  but  by  the  amount  of 
it  he  can  use.  The  fishes  in  your  waters  have  less 
air  to  the  cubic  foot  of  space  than  we  have,  yet  are 
active,  but  if  you  take  them  out  of  the  water  and 
surround  them  with  ten  times  as  much  air  as  they 
had,  they  nevertheless  die,  because  they  have  not 
lungs  suitable  for  breathing  it.  But  furthermore  it 
is  not  the  amount  of  air  that  is  of  such  consequence 
to  animal  life,  but  the  amount  of  oxygen.  Your  air 
consists  of  about  21  parts  of  oxygen  to  79  of  nitro- 
gen, and  mixed  with  it  is  a  considerable  amount  of 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  37 

carbonic  acid  and  other  impurities.  In  our  air 
the  proportions  of  nitrogen  and  oxygen  are  about 
reversed,  and  there  is  a  far  less  amount  of  carbonic 
acid  gas.  There  is  also  a  much  greater  quantity  of 
ozone,  which  as  you  know,  is  a  concentrated  and 
more  active  form  of  oxygen.  And  so  on  the  whole, 
when  I  take  a  breath  of  air  here  on  your  earth,  I 
get  but  a  slightly  greater  quantity  of  oxygen  than 
at  home." 

*'Then  you  are  not  greatly  inconvenienced  in  be- 
ing transferred  from  lunar  conditions  to  those  of 
earth?" 

*'AVell,  not  with  respect  to  breathing,  but  when 
we  are  at  the  surface  of  the  earth  we  are  greatly 
oppressed  by  the  weight  of  your  atmosphere  and  by 
our  own  increased  weight  as  well.  Ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  is  as  long  as  we  can  stand  it  at  one  time. 
But  we  can  get  speedy  relief  by  ascending  ten  thou- 
sand miles  or  so,  and  when  we  have  come  to  earth 
to  make  extended  studies  of  things  here,  we  are  com.- 
pelled  to  interrupt  them  by  frequently  going  up  and 
remaining  awhile. 

I  had  become  not  only  intensely  interested  in  the 
extraordinary  information  communicated  by  my  vis- 
itor, but  greatly  fascinated  by  his  person  and  pres- 
ence ;  and  his  last  speech  made  me  painfully  appre- 
hensive that  I  was  about  to  lose  his  company,  and  so 
I  expressed  the  wish  that  if  he  felt  obliged  to  go 
up  stairs  to  recover  himself,  he  would  return  and 
continue  the  interview  as  soon  as  possible.  He  re- 
plied that  he  would  be  compelled  to  return  home  as 
soon  as  he  left  me,  but  added  that  he  would  remain 
with  me  for  a  considerable  time  longer,  observing 


38  The  Litnarian   Professor 

that  he  felt  exceedingly  §lad  to  impart  information 
to  so  willing  a  listener.  I  could  not  at  the  time 
reconcile  his  intention  of  remaining  a  considerable 
time  longer  with  what  he  said  about  not  being  able 
to  remain  at  the  earth's  surface  more  than  ten  or  fif- 
teen minutes  at  a  time,  as  I  thought  he  had  already 
considerably  exceeded  that.  But  not  wishing  to  lose 
time  by  having  him  reconcile  his  observations,  I 
hastened  to  get  back  to  the  thread  of  his  discourse, 
by  asking  what  sort  of  food  the  lunarians  live  on. 

''The  Lunarians  are  exclusively  vegetarians  and 
live  chiefly  on  grains  and  grasses  and  leguminous 
plants  in  some  degree  resembling  those  on  earth,  but 
of  an  entirely  different  habit,  for  they  all  or  nearly 
all,  mature  in  the  period  of  one-half  of  a  lunar  month 
or  about  fourteen  of  your  days.  But  this  will  not 
seem  so  surprising,  when  you  reflect  that  we  have 
continuous  sunshine  without  night  during  the  whole 
time.  Of  course  this  observation  applies  only  to  the 
exterior  continent  on  the  further  half  of  the  moon. 
Our  plants  were  all  developed  on  that  side  and  be- 
came adapted  to  the  seasons  there,  and  they  general- 
ly retain  their  habits  of  growth  since  their  introduc- 
tion to  the  interior  continent,  or  Pocket.  But  in 
many  cases,  by  changing  the  conditions  of  nourish- 
ment, new  varieties  have  been  developed,  having  a 
longer  or  shorter  period  of  growth.  ]\Iuch  more  than 
half  of  our  food  products  are  produced  under  ex- 
tremely artificial  conditions.  The  artificial  heat  Ave 
require  for  cooking,  for  warmth  etc.,  is  produced  by 
means  of  electricity  and  so  is  our  artificial  light ; 
moreover,  we  do  not  allow  any  organic  matter,  such 
as  dead  bodies,  dead  trees  or  vegetables  or  any  sort 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  39 

of  refuse  or  excrete  matters,  to  rot  either  in  the  open 
air  or  in  the  ground,  and  the  manuring  of  the  soil 
is  strictly  forbidden.  Our  air  therefore  is  very  poor 
in  carbonic  acid  as,  (or  carbonic  dioxide),  which 
constitutes  almost  the  sole  food  required  for  the 
growth  of  plants.  In  fact  about  all  that  the  air  gets 
of  this  gas  is  that  thrown  off  from  our  lungs  in 
breathing.  To  use  this  up,  we  cultivate  various  air 
plants  that  grow  with  little  or  no  roots  and  yet  cover 
the  ground  with  an  agreeable  carpet.  Some  of  these 
are  eatable.  All  organic  matters,  when  they  become 
refuse,  are  carefully  collected  in  great  air  tight  and 
powerful  tanks,  in  which  they  are  heated  under  an 
enormous  pressure  until  their  original  organization 
entirely  disappears.  The  dimensions  of  the  tanks  are 
reduced  during  this  process  by  the  gradual  forcing 
in  of  the  walls,  which  are  made  movable  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  when  the  contained  material  has  becom.c 
reduced  to  about  the  consistency  and  constitution  of 
your  ordinary  lignite  or  soft  coal,  it  is  forced 
through  a  number  of  cylindrical  holes  on  one  side 
of  the  tank,  by  which  it  is  moulded  into  round  sticks 
of  coal,  and  is  then  ready  to  be  used  over  again.  The 
whole  process  is  an  imitation  of  that  by  which  min- 
eral coal  is  produced  in  nature,  both  on  the  earth 
and  the  moon,  except  that  it  is  accomplished  arti- 
ficially with  us  in  about  50  hours,  while  nature  takes 
thousands  of  years  for  it.  The  fluids  and  nitrogen- 
ous and  other  volatile  substances  pressed  out,  are 
secured  and  saved  by  proper  absorbents.  These  to- 
gether with  the  coal  are  used  by  our  food  growers  in 
producing  their  plants. 

The  planting  is  all  done  in  vats  or  chambers  with 


40  The   Lunarian   Professor 

air  tight  roofs.  The  bottom  of  a  vat  is  covered  with 
a  few  inches  of  soil  specially  prepared  and  appro- 
priate for  the  plant  intended  to  be  sown.  After  the 
seeds  germinate  the  vat  is  covered  and  the  inside  is 
brightly  illuminated  with  electricity  and  filled  with 
carbonic  dioxide,  obtained  by  burning  a  proper 
quantity  of  coal  in  a  retort,  which  is  also  accem- 
plished  by  electricity.  All  the  conditions  necessary 
for  rapid  growth  are  supplied  to  the  plants  and  they 
are  forced  forward  to  maturity  without  any  pause  or 
delay,  such  as  takes  place  in  the  growth  of  plants 
on  earth,  through  the  intervention  of  cloudy  or 
stormy  weather,  too  much  or  too  little  moisture,  too 
much  or  too  little  heat,  the  darkness  of  night  etc. 

The  same  method  of  cultivation  prevails  to  a 
great  extent  on  the  exterior  continent,  although  as 
the  sun  shines  on  that  continent  about  350  hours  at 
a  time,  which  constitutes  the  length  of  the  day  there, 
the  vats  are  often  merely  covered  by  air  tight  glass 
roofs  and  the  sun  is  the  growing  power  instead  of 
electricity." 

*'I  understand  now,"  said  I,  "what  you  meant 
by  saying  you  reserved  your  mineral  coal  for  food 
purposes.  You  draw  on  it  only  when  the  steady  sup- 
ply of  artificial  coal  fails?" 

''That  is  correct." 

*'But  if  you  rigorously  save  every  particle  of  your 
organic  matters  to  be  reconverted  into  food,  I  don't 
see  why  it  should  ever  fail  unless  your  population 
increases.  But  you  have  not  informed  me  on  that 
subject." 

"The  control  of  the  reproduction  of  the  popula- 
tion has  been  in  the  hands  of  the  state  from  the  re- 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  41 

motest  antiquity, ' '  said  he ;  ' '  and  no  increase  in  the 
total  number  has  ever  been  permitted  unless  there 
had  already  been  an  increase  in  the  means  of  sup- 
porting the  population  by  the  discovery  of  improved 
methods  or  new  appliances.  The  tendency  and  pol- 
icy has  alwa3^s  been  to  allow  the  population  to  keep 
up  near  the  limits  of  the  means  of  support,  and  oc- 
casionally it  has  crowded  a  little  too  close.  Then 
there  are  occasional  losses  by  fire  and  a  more  or  less 
steady  unavoidable  waste  of  food  materials  in  their 
ordinary  handling.  Some  are  lost  in  the  sea.  But 
as  long  as  there  is  a  store  of  mineral  coal  to  draw 
upon,  no  such  losses  can  entail  more  than  a  tempo- 
rary inconvenience.  One  thing  that  has  a  consider- 
able effect  on  the  food  supply,  is  the  change  in  fash- 
ions, that  often  takes  place  in  a  manner  that  the 
authorities  cannot  f orsee  or  provide  for. ' ' 

''Then  fashion  holds  sway  in  the  moon  as  well 
as  the  earth !  "Well,  I  am  surprised !  But  as  your 
clothes  appear  to  grow  on  you  I  don't  see  how  fash- 
ion can  interfere  very  much,  or  how  it  could  affect 
the  question  of  food." 

''Fashion  with  us  has  nothing  to  do  with  dress. 
As  you  say,  nature  has  provided  us  with  a  dress  at 
once  suitable  and  beautiful.  AVhatever  faults  wo 
have,  personal  vanity  is  not  among  them.  Our  at- 
tention is  but  little  absorbed  in  ourselves,  but  is  con- 
stantly directed  to  others  and  to  the  service  of  the 
community.  If  anyone  should  betake  himself  to 
personal  frills  and  ornaments,  I  fancy  he  Avould  be 
told  he  was  getting  like  the  Earthlings,  and,  he 
would  be  advised  to  go  up  and  live  on  the  Hump, 
so  he  could  be  near  the  people  he  was  trying  to  ape. 


42  The   Lunarian   Professor 

But  there  is  muck  variety  and  change  of  fashion 
with  us  in  the  construction  and  ornamentation  of 
our  buildings,  grounds  and  resorts,  and  the  fashion 
prevailing  in  relation  to  the  transmutation  of  the 
dead  is  making  a  steady  inroad  upon  our  total  food 
supply. 

I  wondered  what  he  could  mean  by  the  transmu- 
tation of  the  dead — but  said  nothing,  awaiting  his 
explanation. 

''You  may  have  thought,"  he  went  on,  ''that  our 
dead  were  utilized  and  turned  into  lignite  like  other 
effete  organic  substances." 

"Certainly,"  I  said,  "that  disposition  of  a  useless 
body  is  preferable  to  any  method  that  prevails  on 
earth.  Here  as  soon  as  a  man  dies  his  presence  be- 
comes so  intolerable  to  us,  that  we  are  obliged  in  self 
defense  to  consign  him  to  earth.  Even  then  the  cor- 
ruption resulting  from  dissolution  is  disseminated 
through  the  soil  contaminating  the  water  supply  and 
starting  epidemics  of  diphtheria  and  typhoid  fever, 
besides  occupying  room  that  sooner  or  later  is  be- 
grudged to  him.  Cremation  is  certainly  an  improve- 
ment on  inhmnation,  but  even  that  is  a  considerable 
expense,  and  when  it  is  over,  we  have  only  a  hand- 
ful of  raw  mineral  ashes  left.  The  best  part  of  the 
man  has  gone  off  iu  smoke  and  we  have  not  three  or 
four  pounds  of  good  coal  left  to  show  for  him  as 
you  have.  And  then  it  ought  to  be  a  source  of  grati- 
fication to  the  defunct  himself  if  he  could  know  it, 
that  his  'corpus'  was  turned  to  some  useful  ac- 
count." 

He  here  turned  his  vast  eyes  upon  me  with  such 
a  deep  expression  of  mild  and  sorrowful  reproach. 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  43 

that  I  instantly  felt  as  if  I  had  made  an  exceedingly 
flippant  speech  and  had  said  far  too  much  or  much 
too  little,  but  he  gave  me  no  time  to  amend  it. 

''We  are  much  more  sentimental  than  that,"  he 
said;  ''our  dead  are  not  cremated  in  the  manner 
practiced  on  earth,  but  are  totally  disintegrated  by 
electricity,  and  turned  into  their  component  ele- 
ments. No  portion  of  their  substance  is  lost  or  dis- 
sipated, but  the  material  is  all  conserved  and  caused 
to  form  a  new  organism.  The  fashion  originated 
m.any  ages  ago,  to  use  the  materials  to  grow  some 
common  sort  of  a  plant  or  shrub  from  the  seed,  such 
as  something  resembling  your  grass  or  fern  or  some 
cereal.  This  was  done  in  the  garden  vats  I  have  de- 
scribed to  you.  Plants  grown  under  these  cirmum- 
stances  or  any  circumstances  for  that  matter,  very 
often  sprout  or  grow  into  forms  differing  slightly 
from  the  normal.  Taking  advantage  of  this,  our 
botanists  have  produced  food  plants  having  a  won- 
derful concentration  of  nourishing  qualities  in  small 
compass  and  accompanied  by  the  least  possible 
quantity  of  v^^aste  products.  And  in  like  manner  our 
undertakers  have  developed  a  great  variety  of  plants 
to  be  grown  from  the  constituent  materials  of  the 
dead.  It  was  formerly  the  fashion  to  preserve  only 
a  portion  of  the  plants,  thus  grown.  A  few  leaves 
were  distributed  among  the  friends  of  the  deceased 
and  pressed  in  herbariums  for  preservation.  But 
the  growing  veneration  for  ancestors  and  considera- 
tion for  each  other  together  with  the  prevalent  be- 
lief among  us  that  we  are  formed  in  the  very  image 
of  the  Deity,  finally  brought  about  the  practice  of 
preserving  entire,  the  plants  produced  by  transmu- 


44  The  Lunarian   Professor 

tation.  Thus  there  is  already  a  vast  accumulation  of 
these  vegetable  representatives  of  deceased  Lunari- 
ans, and  our  economists  point  out  that  if  this  goes 
on,  we  will  be  compelled  to  constantly  draw  on  our 
natural  food  reserves,  and  that  finally  these  will  all 
be  consumed  and  everything  eatable  will  at  last  be- 
come transmuted  into  these  sacred  and  inviolable 
forms.  In  short  the  living  race  will  finally  become 
transmuted  into  dead  dry  plants.  These  arguments 
of  the  philosophers  have  as  yet  had  no  effect  on  the 
people  and  their  priestly  leaders.  They  denounce 
the  philosophers  as  being  unfaithful  to  the  religion 
and  traditions  of  the  race,  and  as  advocating  canni- 
balism. 

They  say:  'you  would  reduce  us  to  the  level  of 
the  necrophagous  Earthlings,  who  from  time  imme- 
morial have  consumed  the  elements  of  their  ancestors 
and  friends  and  enemies  alike,  with  beastly  indiffer- 
ence'." 

''But,"  I  interrupted;  "you  know  they  are  mis- 
taken in  this  opinion  of  us.  Only  a  few  savages  on 
earth  are  man  eaters." 

''True,"  said  he,  "but  what  they  mean  is,  that 
from  your  manner  of  disposing  of  the  dead,  when 
they  become  decomposed,  their  elements  are  dispers- 
ed in  the  air  and  absorbed  by  the  soil  from  which 
they  pass  into  plants  and  finally  become  your  food. 
I  have  heard  a  Lunarian  say  he  would  starve  rather 
than  eat  a  grain  containing  a  molecule  of  nitrogen 
or  carbon,  that  had  once  formed  a  part  of  one  of  his 
ancestors." 

"Well,  I  think  that  is  the  culmination  of  scrupul- 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  45 

osity.     I  am  glad  such  phenomenal    squeamishness 
does  not  exist  on  this  planet." 

"I  do  not  defend  it  nor  approve  of  it,"  he  replied, 
* '  any  more  than  you  do.  But  still  I  think  your  com- 
placent congratulations  of  your  own  race  rather  out 
of  place.  You  are  quite  as  much  under  the  domin- 
ion of  indefensible  ideas  as  we.  For  example,  you 
have  an  ancient  book  whose  doctrines  and  precepts 
you  think  you  must  accept  and  oh^j  whether  they 
are  agreeable  and  suitable  or  not,  although  the  men 
who  gave  them,  have  been  dead  two  or  three  thou- 
sand years,  while  scarcely  two  of  you  agree  as  to 
what  the  precepts  are  and  each  generation  has  a  dif- 
ferent interpretation  of  them.  You  have  a  sect  that 
believe  that  your  Deity  is  mortally  offended  with  all 
who  do  not  submit  to  be  immersed  under  water, 
while  others  think  he  will  be  satisfied  with  their  hav- 
ing a  few  drops  sprinkled  on  the  face.  You  have 
sects  that  believe  your  Deity  is  greatly  displeased  to 
see  people  hopping  around  on  their  legs,  or  dancing 
as  you  call  it,  while  one  sect  employ  dancing  as  the 
most  satisfactory  mode  of  worshipping  him.  You 
have  a  sect  that  believe  that  pictures,  music  and 
ornaments,  and  coats  with  collars  that  turn  down  are 
offensive  to  the  Deity,  and  who  think  he  is  best 
pheased  with  silent  worship,  while  others  think  he 
likes  to  be  flattered  in  loud  speeches  and  louder 
songs  addressed  to  himself,  and  that  he  is  indiffer- 
ent whether  coat  collars  stand  up  or  lie  down.  You 
have  a  sect  that  believe  that  buttons  on  the  clothes 
are  offensive  to  him  and  who  therefore  fasten  their 
clothing  with  hooks  and  eyes.  All  these  sects  and 
many  more  equally  absurd,  get  their  various  contra- 


46  Tlic  Lunarian   Professor 

dictory  notions  from  the  same  book,  and  they  adhere 
to  them  with  such  tenacity  that  in  many  cases  they 
would  die  rather  than  give  them  up  and  would  if 
they  dared,  murder  other  people  for  not  accepting 
them,  and  in  times  past  have  done  so  in  thousands 
of  instances.  In  former  times  it  was  a  common 
opinion,  that  your  Deity  had  an  arch  enemy  called 
the  Devil,  who  opposed,  bothered  and  thwarted  him 
in  the  most  provoking  manner,  and  among  other 
things  inspired  and  aided  thousands  of  unattractive 
old  women  to  turn  themselves  into  wolves,  cats  and 
other  beasts  and  to  becomxe  witches,  and  in  these  con- 
ditions to  attack  and  injure  their  neighbors  and 
bring  strange  diseases  upon  them.  For  these  offen- 
ses these  old  women  were  judged  by  your  sacred 
books  and  were  burnt  by  the  thousand.  And  yet 
many  of  the  men  of  this  generation,  while  still  hold- 
ing to  the  sacred  books,  have  not  only  repudiated 
witchcraft,  but  even  the  devil  himself,  and  an  at- 
tempt to  burn  a  witch  would  now  be  met  by  an  in- 
surrection. Then  you  have  a  sect,  or  a  nation  rather, 
of  people,  who  claim  that  they  are  the  peculiar  fav- 
orites of  your  Deity,  who  chose  them  from  among 
all  the  nations  and  set  them  apart  as  his  own,  and 
ordered  them  to  practice  a  certain  peculiar  mutila- 
tion on  the  bodies  on  their  children  as  an  evidence 
and  seal  of  his  promises  to  them.  No  one  of  these 
people  would  consider  himself  entitled  to  hold  up 
his  head  if  it  were  not  for  his  mutilation.  Notwith- 
standing the  claims  of  these  peculiar  people  are  ad- 
mitted by  the  rest,  no  people  on  earth  have  been 
so  despised,  persecuted  and  maltreated  as  they.  For 
over  2,000  years  they  have  been  kicked  and  cuffed 


The  Moon  and  Its  People  47 

about  the  earth,  robbed,  driven  repeatedly  from  one 
country  to  another,    and    have    never    in    all    that 
time  possessed  the  sovereignty  of  a  single  township. 
Then  again  your  race  believe   they   are   made   and 
formedln  the  very  image  and  likeness  of  your  Deity, 
yet  you  conceal  that  likeness  with  garments  as  iC 
ashamed  of  it,  and  such  are  your  notions  of  pro- 
priety that  if  a  man  should  show  this  divine  likeness 
in  public,  naked  or  even  half  naked,  he  would  be 
sent  to  prison,  or  a  mad  house.    And  then  consider 
the  fashions  of  these  garments.    Those  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  make  clothes,  constantly  demand  changes 
in  the  fashion,  so  as  to  secure  m.ore  employment  and 
profit  for  themselves,   and  whenever   certain  ones, 
who  have  appointed  themselves  to  be  the  leaders, 
say  the  word,  everybody  feels   obliged  to   procure 
new  clothes  of  such  sort  as  these  leaders  require, 
notwithstanding  those  they  already   have    may   be 
good,  useful  and  becoming,  and  that  those  prescrib- 
ed, may  be  hideous,  unsuitable     and    unhealthful. 
Many  of  you  are  actually  so  infatuated  with  this 
bondage,  that  if  you  could  not  comply  with  its  re- 
quirements, you  would  regard  life  as  of  no  account." 
During  the  delivery  of  this  tirade,  the  flashing 
eyes  of  my  visitor  showed  how  much  his  feeling  was 
enlisted  in  the  subject  and  during  the  whole  time  I 
continued  to   reproach  myself   for  having   started 
him  off  on  such  a  rampage,  by  an  unlucky,  if  not 
impertinent  remark  of  my  own.    I  was  made  to  re- 
call the  adage  that  people  who  live  in  glass  houses, 
should  not  engage  in  throwing  stones ;  and  it  was 
forcibly  shown  me  how  very  much  ''human  nature" 
the  Lunarians  possess,  since  while  he  was  willing  to 


4S  The   Lunarian   Professor 

point  out,  criticise  and  condemn  the  follies  of  his 
own  people,  he  would  not  allow  an  outsider  to  do  it. 
I  was  greatly  relieved  when  he  paused  and  gave  me 
an  opportunity  to  change  the  subject,  which  I  did 
with  a  precipitancy,  that  evidently  amused  him  and 
brought  back  the  good  natured  expression  that 
habitually  possessed  his  eyes.  In  fact  I  believe  that 
the  change  I  had  observed  was  due  to  intellectual 
activity  and  was  not  accompanied  by  any  real  feel- 
ing of  resentment  or  passion.  Said  I,  ''One  of  our 
wise  men  has  expressed  the  opinion,  that  the  people 
of  the  earth,  are  "maistly  fules,"  and  I  believe  that 
most  other  wise  men  agree  with  him.  So  I  beg  you 
will  waste  no  more  of  your  precious  time  in  arraign- 
ing our  race,  but  go  on  with  your  intensely  interest- 
ing and  instructive  account  of  your  own  race  and 
your  remarkable  planet."  He  thereupon  goodnat- 
uredly  resumed. 

''Organic  existence  must  everywhere  be  to  a 
great  extent  the  same.  The  elements  that  enter  into 
the  composition  of  organisms,  are  subject  to  certain 
laws  of  chemical  affinity,  that  demand  their  own 
conditions,  and  will  not  operate  when  these  condi- 
tions are  absent.  The  chief  of  these  are  furnished 
by  the  radiations  of  the  sun  in  our  solar  system  and 
no  doubt  by  those  of  the  stars  in  other  systems.  These 
radiations  impressed  upon  organized  materials  be- 
come light  and  heat  and  where  they  are  either  in 
excess  or  deficiency  organic  development  is  not  pos- 
sible. These  conditions  obtain  throughout  the  solar 
system,  and  no  doubt  in  every  system  composed  of 
the  same  sort  of  elements.    But  of  the  solar  system 


Tlie  Moon  and  lis  People  49 

we  can  speak  with  some  confidence,  for  we  have  been 
able  to  visit  a  considerable  part  of  it. 

The  inhabitans  of  the  different  planets  differ 
from  each  other  in  the  same  way  that  the  various 
animal  races  of  earth  differ  from  each  other.  You 
have  on  earth  four  sub-kingdoms  of  intelligent  ani- 
mals ;  vertebrates,  articulates,  mollusks  and  radiates. 
These  have  all  been  evolved  from  a  common  worm- 
like ancestry,  and  each  form  possesses  the  potentiali- 
ty of  receiving  an  equally  high  development,  both 
physically  and  mentally.  The  development  of  any 
of  them  in  all  cases  depends  upon  the  way  they  are 
impressed  by  their  surroundings  and  the  proper  sur- 
roundings can  develop  high  intelligence  in  either  of 
the  forms.  On  earth  the  highest  development  has 
happened  to  the  vertebrate  branch,  but  with  us  the 
articulates  have  always  been  the  dominant  branch, 
while  the  vertebrates  have  never  attained  to  a  condi- 
tion above  that  of  your  salamanders  and  small  liz- 
zards.  The  ascendant  race  with  us  as  with  you  has 
always  contributed  to  keep  the  others  in  the  back- 
ground, by  destroying  the  most  advanced  and  ag- 
gressive of  them  and  pursuing  them  till  none  but  tlie 
smallest,  weakest  and  most  harmless  of  their  tribe 
remain.  Indeed  until  this  is  done,  the  position  of 
the  ascendant  race  is  not  secure.  Your  own  race 
has  had  experience  of  this  in  the  struggle  with  and 
subjugation  of  other  races.  In  the  early  history  of 
the  earth,  it  was  for  a  long  time  doubtful  whether 
it  was  to  be  dominated  by  the  human  family  or  by  a 
tribe  of  reptiles.  At  that  ancient  period,  a  tribe  of 
reptiles  had  become  developed  that  walked  erect  on 
their  hind  legs,   and  whose   fore  limbs   supported 


50  The  Lunarian    Professor 

wings  and  terminated  in  excellent  hands,  having  four 
fingers.  There  were  several  related  families  of  these 
animals,  some  of  which -were  almost  or  quite  the 
equal  of  man  in  intelligence.  The  final  triumph  of 
man  over  these  advanced  reptiles,  was  due  to  his 
superior  compact  social  organization.  "While  they 
relied  on  their  superior  personal  prowess  and  often 
fought  single  handed,  men  always  fought  in  bands, 
and  hung  together  in  all  their  enterprises.  The  rep- 
tiles being  finally  vanquished  and  the  tribes  most  ad- 
vanced and  most  to  be  feared  having  been  exter- 
minated, the  rest  had  two  modes  of  escape.  They 
could  use  their  wings  and  thus  by  flight  keep  out  of 
the  way  of  their  enemies  or  they  could  hide  by 
crouching  down  in  the  grass  and  weeds  and  making 
themselves  as  small,  sly  and  inconspicuous  as  possi- 
ble. Some  pursued  one  of  these  courses  and  some 
the  other.  The  descendants  of  those  that  flew  away 
gradually  became  developed  into  the  birds  as  you 
now  have  them;  while  those  that  resorted  to  hiding 
and  crouching  down,  were  thus  deprived  of  the  op- 
portunity to  use  their  limbs  generation  after  genera- 
tion and  so  the  limbs  gradually  became  shrunken 
and  useless,  finally  disappearing  completely,  or  al- 
most so,  causing  the  body  to  come  down  flat  on  its 
belly  on  the  ground,  and  thus  were  produced  the 
serpents  as  you  now  have  them.'' 

''No  doubt,"  said  T,  "the  serpents  originated  in 
that  way.  They  formerly  possessed  limbs,  because 
many  species  still  have  the  rudiments  of  them.  In 
some  cases  these  remnants  show  themselves  like  lit- 
tle hooks  on  the  outside  of  the  skin,  while  many 
others  are  covered  up  by  the  skin  and  are  not  seen 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon.  51 

^t  all  But  all  that  retrogressive  adaptation  by 
t^hS  they  lost  their  limbs,  must  have  been  practi- 
:i;  completed  before  our  race  possessed  any  sem- 
vV  r.f  thpir  Tiresent  form  and  condition. 

'^'^-Ii:  ea'tvCproceeded,  "was  full  of  contend- 
in.  ra"s  and  of  course  the  backset  that  was  >m- 
"oled  otVe  snakes,  was  contributed  to  ^y  "t^.^^^^^^ 
wPll  as  men  but  the  latter  were  among  the  last  ancl 
Is  regarlfte  particular  family  of  reptiles  m  ques 
tion  the  most  formidable  and  eflectual  opponents. 
Some  of  your  ancient  traditions  and  literature  con- 

dominLt  race  on  our  planet  is  an  articulate. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Life  In  and  On  the  Moon. 

.'I  confess,"  said  I,  "that  yon  have  demonstrated 
the  possibility  of  a  development  among  the  articu 
ates'quite  equal  at  least  to  that  of  ma^nmaR    You 
„,nst  have  animals  of  son^  sort  .n  your  seas 
lakes;  what  do  you  do  with  themi 


52  The  Lunarian  Professor 

"AVe  have  some  lar«,'e  soft  bodied  animals,  some- 
thing akin  to  your  large  mollusks  and  others  having 
a  cartilaginous  frame,  but  we  have  no  bony  fishes. 
These  animals  are  sometimes  caught  and  turned  in- 
to food  products,  the  same  as  other  organic  refuse, 
but  never  eaten  directly,  as  we  are  vegetarians.  The 
amount  of  water  surface  on  our  planet  is  quite  small 
compared  with  yours.  The  seas  are  narrow,  but  of 
immense  depth.  Indeed,  some  of  them  are  known 
to  have  passages  communicating  directly  through 
the  planet  and  connecting  the  waters  of  the  exterior 
continent,  with  those  of  the ''Pocket".  The  fluctua- 
tion of  the  tides  takes  place  bi-monthly,  with  enor- 
mous force  through  these  ''bores."  When  the  moon 
is  between  the  earth  and  sun  the  tide  rises  on  the 
exterior  continent,  and  when  on  the  opposite  side, 
it  rises  in  the  interior  continent,  the  amount  of  the 
rise  being  very  great  in  the  neighborhood  of  these 
"bores,"  but  inconsiderable  elsewhere." 

"Your  climate  I  suppose  is  very  different  from 
ours — of  course  it  must  be." 

"Yes  certainly,  and  the  climate  of  the  interior 
continent  differs  greatly  from  that  of  the  exterior. 
On  the  polar  regions  of  the  exterior  continent,  we 
experience  the  extreme  change  of  seasons,  that  oc- 
cur on  earth,  from  a  very  cold  winter  to  a  very  hot 
summer — all  in  the  space  of  about  291/2  of  your  days 
or  709  hours.  In  the  equatorial  regions,  however,  tho 
extremes  are  greatly  tempered  by  the  winds,  which 
always  blow  toward  the  position  of  the  sun,  by  the 
great  evaporation  that  takes  place  during  the  day, 
and  by  the  fact  that  the  air  of  the  equatorial  bolt 
is  both  higher  and  denser  than  that  in  the  polar  re- 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  53 

gions.  In  many  cases,  the  upper  air  is  charged  with 
heavy  clouds,  that  remain  suspended  all  night  or 
all  winter,  as  you  choose,  and  these  prevent  the  land 
from  becoming  very  cold." 

"Vegetation  must  come  on  very  rapidly  during 
your  little  summers,"  I  observed. 

''Yes,  it  does.  We  have  grasses  that  grow  from 
the  sown  seed  and  mature  their  grains  in  eight  days. 
But,  we  have  others,  whose  habit  requires  that  they 
be  sown  about  midwinter,  and  they  are  harvested  in 
midsummer.  Other  plants  are  annual,  dropping 
their  leaves  soon  after  darkness  sets  in  and  putting 
forth  new  ones  again  as  soon  as  daylight  returns. 
Our  food  plants  are,  however,  chiefly  raised  arti- 
ficially in  both  the  exterior  and  the  interior  conti- 
nents. The  farms  are  often  immense  buildings  cov-^ 
ering  several  acres  and  consisting  of  from  ten  to 
twenty  stories,  each  story  comprising  a  farm.  As 
our  space  can  thus  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  and 
as  we  can  raise  twelve  or  more  crops  a  year  in  the 
same  space,  you  see  a  single  acre  can  be  made  to  be 
equal  to  one  or  two  hundred.  It  is  not  necessessary 
to  use  this  degree  of  economy  of  room  in  all  cases, 
and  so,  many  farms  consist  of  but  a  single  story  on 
the  ground,  and  often  on  the  exterior  continent  only 
the  suns  rays  are  employed  instead  of  electricity  to 
furnish  energy  for  the  growth  of  the  crop.  Even 
this  method  gives  us  about  13  crops  a  year.  The 
artificial  methods  are  generally  preferred,  however, 
as  they  are  far  more  certain  and  reliable.  In  the  in- 
terior continent  of  course  these  methods  prevail  ex- 

clnsivelv." 

*qt  seems  strange,"  said  I,  ^Hhat  the  spaces  in 


54:  The  Lunarian  Professor 

the  interior  continent,  should  be  great  enough  to 
hold  any  considerable  population.  We  have  on  earth 
some  large  caves,  but  put  them  all  together  and  they 
would  not  afford  shelter  for  the  inhabitants  of  a 
small  city." 

''The  caves  that  are  at  present  accessible  to  you, 
are  small  and  due  to  the  action  of  water.  All  springs, 
by  carrying  out  mineral  matter  in  solution  from  be- 
low the  surface,  are  constructing  caves,  and  much 
more  extensive  ones  than  might  be  supposed.  But 
those  formed  by  the  action  of  volcanoes,  your  ex- 
plorers have  had  little  opportunity  to  study,  and, 
but  few  probally  have  any  adequate  idea  of  the 
sizes  of  the  holes  left  under  the  surface,  by  the  ejec- 
tion of  materials  by  volcanoes. 

Some  of  your  scientists  estimated  that  the  vol- 
cano Krakatoa,  in  the  East  Indies,  during  a  couple 
of  days  in  xVugust,  18S3,  discharged  a  cubic  mile  of 
materials.  The  volcano  has  had  a  great  many  erup- 
tions in  times  past,  and  has  throv.n  out  a  great  many 
cubic  miles.  The  materials  composing  the  mountain 
itself,  have  all  been  thrown  from  its  crater,  and  the 
same  thing  has  happened  in  the  case  of  all  the  vol- 
canoes on  earth,  of  which  there  are  thousands.  The 
spaces  left  in  the  crust  of  the  earth  by  this  process, 
have  amounted  in  the  aggregate  to  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  cubic  miles.  Many  spaces  thus  formed, 
have  been  filled  again  by  melted  materials  pressed 
up  from  below,  by  the  pressure  of  the  crust  upon  the 
melted  interior.  But  a  vast  amount  of  empty  space 
yet  remains  and  will  continue  to  be  added  to  for 
millions  of  years  to  come.  As  the  earth  grows  older 
and  colder,  internally,  the  crust  will  become  thicker 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  55 

and  more  unyielding,  so  that  as  new  subterranean 
spaces  are  formed  by  volcanic  activity,  fewer  of 
these  will  be  filled  up  again  and  the  final  aggregate 
of  them  will  doubtless  in  time  reach  millions  of  cubic 
miles.  The  spaces  comprising  the  ^'Pocket"  conti- 
nent of  the  moon,  above  the  sea  level,  are  estimated 
by  us  to  amount  to  about  1,500,000  cubic  miles. '^ 

*'This  then,"  I  observed,  ''must  give  you  a  con- 
tinent in  there  of  something  like  1,500,000  cubic 
miles,  supposing  the  space  to  be  a  mile  high. ' ' 

''Yes,  but  that  is  not  the  shape  of  the  interior. 
The  ground  floor  of  our  continent  at  or  near  the 
sea  level  is  only  about  800,000  square  miles,  and  it 
consists  of  thousands  of  separated  chambers,  varying 
from  a  fey  rods  to  many  miles  in  extent,  and  of  every 
conceivable  shape,  some  being  circular  or  oval,  some 
long  and  narrow,  and  straight  or  crooked.  There 
are  a  great  many  of  the  long  narrow  sort,  extending 
in  some  cases  as  m^uch  as  400  miles,  widening  in  some 
places  to  as  much  as  ten  miles  and  again  narrowing 
down  to  half  a  mile.  These  are  nothing  less  than 
cracks  in  our  planet.  They  run  in  many  directions, 
often  intersecting  each  other,  and  they  extend  far 
down  toward  the  center  and  upward  in  some  places 
eight  or  ten  miles  before  the  sides  arch  together  in 
a  mighty  dome.  There  are  water  marks  high  up  the 
sides  of  these  great  chambers  showing  the  sea  level 
to  have  been  much  higher  in  ancient  times  than  at 
present,  and  the  action  of  the  water  on  the  sides 
has  greatly  widened  the  spaces,  the  materials  being 
v/ashed  into  the  bottomless  fissures,  that  extend  to- 
ward the  center  of  the  planet." 


56  Tlie  Lunarian  Professor 

"How  do  YOU  account  for  the  changes  in  the  sea- 
level?"  I  inquired. 

**As  the  moon  cooled  off,  a  great  deal  of  water 
was  taken  up  by  the  rocks,  while  crystallizing  and 
thus  chemically  united  with  them,  a  great  deal  more 
was  absorbed  by  them  mechanically,  by  their  pores, 
while  a  still  greater  quanity  occupies  large  fissures 
and  chambers,  penetrating  in  all  directions  through 
the  planet  communicating  with  each  other  and  con- 
necting the  interior  waters  with  those  of  the  ex- 
terior continent.  The  action  of  the  water  has  great- 
ly contributed,  not  only  to  the  enlargement  of  the 
spaces  in  the  interior  continent,  but  to  the  creation 
of  a  pulverized  soil  and  pleasing  landscapes.  The 
chambers  that  are  inhabited,  are  of  course  all  con- 
nected with  each  other,  but  besides  these,  it  is  quite 
certain  there  are  great  numbers  of  very  extensive 
ones  in  the  masses  of  materials  that  bound  the  in- 
habited chambers.  Artificial  tunnels  are  constantly 
being  cut  into  these  walls  and  so  ncAv  countries  are 
often  discovered  and  connected  with  the  rest  and 
opened  for  settlement.  In  addition  to  those  cham- 
bers that  come  down  to  the  sea  level  the  aggregate 
of  the  area  of  which  I  told  you  is  about  800,000 
square  miles,  there  are  vast  areas  situated  at  higher 
levels  in  the  material,  that  bounds  the  sea-level 
chambers.  These  elevated  areas  are  at  all  heights 
from  one-fourth  of  a  mile  to  four  or  five  miles  above 
the  sea-level.  There  are  known  to  be  many  above 
these,  but  they  are  not  habitable,  on  account  of  light- 
ness of  the  air.  The  elevated  chambers  are  connected 
with  each  other,  and  with  the  lower  ones,  by  means 
of  sloping  passages  at  all  grades.     In  some  cases 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  57 

chambers  are  located  directly  on  top  of  the  thick 
roof  of  others  and  are  reached  by  long  and  circuit- 
ous routes.  In  a  number  of  cases,  the  walls  of  sea- 
level  chambers,  after  closing  in  almost  together  to 
form  an  arch  over  them,  widen  out  again  above  and 
thus  form  other  chambers  above,  and  sometimes 
these  stories  continue  one  above  another  until  the 
surface  of  the  hump  is  reached,  where  the  openings 
appear  sometimes  as  channels,  and  at  others,  as  cir- 
cular craters." 

*'No  doubt,"  said  I,  ''the  craters  that  our  astro- 
nomers see  in  such  vast  numbers  on  this  side  of  the 
moon  communicate  with  your  interior  continent." 
*'Yes  they  do." 

*'Then  is  it  possible,  that  they  sometimes  see 
down  to  your  interior  habitations  ?  They  report  some 
of  these  craters,  as  appearing  to  be  many  miles 
deep." 

''They  cannot  see  down  to  our  habitations,  for 
two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  although  the  craters 
connect  with  the  vast  ladyrinth  of  passages  and 
chambers  below,  with  few  exceptions  they  bend  and 
subdivide  into  numerous  dividing  branches  long  be- 
fore they  get  down  to  a  habitable  level.  In  the 
second  place  there  are  perpetual  clouds  standing  in 
all  those  passages,  that  lead  to  the  surface  of  the 
hump,  at  various  elevations  of  from  two  or  three  to 
eight  or  ten  miles  above  the  sea  level.  Of  course 
it  is  not  possible  to  see  down  through  these — nor  up 
through  them  either — except  v.^hen  they  are  cleared 
away  for  a  special  purpose,  as  is  done  sometimes  for 
the  benefit  of  our  astronomers." 

"They  sometimes  look  out  through  these  craters 


58  The  Lunarian   Professor 

then,  do  they  ?  How  do  they  get  rid  of  the  clouds  ? ' ' 
"I  will  describe  one  of  the  craters  used  by  the 
astronomers  for  an  observatory.  It  is  the  shape  of  a 
funnel  with  a  diameter  at  the  surface  of  the  hump 
of  twenty-five  miles.  From  there  it  tapers  rapidly 
inwards  till  at  a  distance  of  about  29  miles  below 
the  surface,  it  has  narrowed  down  to  a  mile  in  dia- 
meter. This  is  the  entrance,  down  to  what  vras  ori- 
ginally a  vast  dome  shaped  chamber.  This  chamber 
is  now  filled  to  the  roof  on  one  side,  by  material 
poured  down  through  the  funnel,  while  on  the  other 
side  the  material  consisting  of  volcanic  ashes,  scoria, 
rocks  etc.,  slopes  down  for  three  miles,  the  over- 
arching dome  finally  closing  down  to  it  leaving  only 
a  few  narrow  passages  through  into  other  chambers. 
Well  up  on  this  slope  and  nearly  under  the  center  of 
the  great  funnel,  our  astronomers  established  their 
observatory.  This  is  for  the  special  purpose  of  ex- 
amining the  earth,  which  is  always  in  sight  from 
this  point,  and  as  it  rolls  itself  over  every  twenty- 
four  hours,  without  apparently  moving  out  of  its 
tracks,  it  is  seemingly  on  exhibition  for  our  sole 
benefit.  As  we  revolve  around  it  every  month  we 
are  enabled  to  see  both  poles  alternately,  while  the 
whole  of  the  equatorial  parts  can  be  seen  every 
twenty-four  hours. 

We  are  thus  enabled  to  make  far  more  complete 
and  perfect  maps  of  the  earth,  than  you  have  your- 
selves. We  have  powerful  telescopes.  The  one  at  the 
funnel  observatory  I  am  telling  you  of,  can  bring 
the  earth  within  forty  miles." 

"If  it  brought  it  eleven  miles  further  it  would 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  59 

stop  up  the  funnel  and  become  invisible,  wouldn't 
it?"  saidl. 

His  eyes  expressed  a  slight  gleam  of  humor,  which 
I  fancied  was  tinged  by  a  shade  of  compassion,  as 
he  recognized  this  for  a  joke,  and  then  he  went  on : 

"As  to  the  clouds— they  are  cleared  away  when- 
ever we  wish,  by  means  of  artificial  thunder  storms. 
Metallic  conductors  have  been  put  in  place  up  the 
sides  of  the  lofty  chambers,  and  at  the  proper 
heights  are  fixed  with  their  poles  pointing  across  the 
space,  the  positive  on  one  side  and  the  negative  on 
the  opposite.  Heavy  electric  discharges  are  then 
made,  the  spark  which  is  often  one-fourth  of  a  mile 
long  traversing  the  cloud  and  speedily  condensing 
it  into  rain.  The  observatory,  I  have  spoken  of,  is 
too  high  to  be  often  affected  by  clouds,  but  when 
the  funnel  is  hazy,  it  can  soon  be  cleared  out.  There 
are  several  observatories  on  this  side  of  the  moon 
situated  like  this  one,  and  their  chief  business  is  the 
examination  of  the  earth,  which  is  our  most  inter- 
esting celestial  object,  and  w^hich  can  never  be  seen 
from  the  external  continent,  except  at  its  extreme 
east  and  west  ends,  from  which  position  it  is  seen 
low  down  on  the  horizon." 

''It  must  be  extremely  handy,"  said  I,  ''to  be 
able  to  produce  a  shower  whenever  you  wish.  The 
formation  of  these  clouds  however  presupposes  great 
evaporation. ' ' 

'*Yes,  evaporation  takes  place  from  the  numerous 
sheets  of  sea  water  in  the  various  chambers,  the  ag- 
gregate of  which  is  estimated  at  about  120,000  square 
miles.  There  is  more  or  less  of  this  sea  water  in  al- 
most every  one  of  the  sea-level  chambers.    Besides 


60  The  Lunarian  Professor 

the  evaporation  from  these  bodies  of  water,  more  or 
less  evaporation  occurs  from  every  one  of  the  indust- 
ries in  which  water  is  used,  and  so  the  aggregate  is 
very  considerable.  But  it  is  always  nearly  uniform 
in  quantity,  in  the  interior  continent.  As  the  sus- 
pended moisture  comes  into  contract  with  the  upper 
walls  and  roofs  of  the  lofty  chambers,  it  is  being 
constantly  condensed,  and  the  fresh  water  thus 
formed  trickles  down  the  walls  and  slopes  in  drops, 
rills  and  brooks,  and  finds  its  way  through  the 
ground  and  porous  rocks.  Many  underground 
streams  are  formed  that  find  their  way  into  the  high- 
level  chambers,  which  are  thus  supplied  with  pure 
water.  The  inhabitants  of  others  have  supplied 
themselves  by  tunnelling  through  into  the  upper 
parts  of  lofty  chambers,  that  have  their  floors  at  the 
sea-level,  and  thus  they  tap  the  clouds  themselves. ' ' 

"Our  astronomers  tell  us  that  some  of  the  Lunar 
craters  are  60  or  80  miles  in  diameter  or  even  more, 
which  indicates  that  an  enormously  greater  amount 
of  volcanic  action  has  taken  place  on  the  moon  than 
on  the  earth.     How  is  that?'* 

He  replied,  "Our  opioion  is  this:  The  volcanic 
action  in  the  moon  toward  its  close  and  final  cessa- 
tion, was  enormous.  The  planet  had  already  been 
completely  honey-combed  by  former  convulsions  and 
the  seas  had  poured  themselves  into  the  underground 
openings,  until  there  was  almost  as  much  water  be- 
low the  surface  as  above.  This  water  kept  up  a 
continual  contention  with  the  melted  interior,  result- 
ing in  still  greater  explosions,  sending  out  enorm- 
ous quantities  of  volcanic  matter,  forming  cones  in 
some  cases  twenty-five  miles  high  and  over  100  miles 


TAfe  In  and  On  the  Moon  61 

in  diameter.  The  enormous  weight  of  these  volcanic 
cones  in  many  cases  proved  too  great  to  be  support- 
ed by  the  crust,  that  separated  them  from  the  in- 
terior cavities  their  materials  had  been  blown  out 
of,  and  so  they  broke  through — that  is  the  central 
part  of  the  cones  broke  through,  leaving  a  margin 
of  their  bases  all  around,  standing  like  the  walls  of 
a  crater.  But  these  are  not  the  original  craters,  as 
you  can  see.  If  they  were,  they  would  be  on  top  of 
elevated  cones  of  enormous  hight,  which  they  are 
not." 

"This  view  appears  to  me  very  plausible  and  I 
feel  the  more  interested  in  the  subject,  because  the 
idea  constantly  impresses  itself  upon  me,  that  the 
earth  is  repeating  the  history  of  the  moon.  Ac- 
cording to  our  theories  of  evolution  the  two 
bodies  separated  from  each  other,  when  they  were 
in  the  condition  of  hot  expanded  gases,  and  as  the 
moon  contained  only  1-81  part  as  much  m.atter  as 
the  earth,  it  cooled  down  and  became  a  habitable 
world,  many  millions  of  years  before  the  earth.  Since 
you  have  been  talking  to  me,  the  impression  has 
constantly  grown  upon  me,  that  your  moon  history 
is  really  an  anticipation  of  our  own,  and  it  becomes 
the  more  interesting  on  that  account." 

His  eyes  expressed  extreme  satisfaction,  as  he  re- 
plied that  he  was  glad  that  I  had  seen  that  point. 

"We  have  in  one  of  the  provinces  of  the  interior 
continent,  an  immense  university,  devoted  to  the  stu- 
dy of  mundane  affairs,  past,  present  and  future.  The 
duty  is  assigned  me  of  holding  a  professorship  in 
this  university,  in  the  college  of  'IMundane  Prognos- 
tication'.   As  this  college  has  been  in  operation  for 


62  The   Limarian    Professor 

over  100,000  years,  we  have  had  abundant  oppor- 
tunity to  verily  our  system  of  prognostication,  and 
you  would  be  surprised  at  the  accuracy  with  whicli 
our  predictions  have  been  realized  in  your  history. 
Of  course,  we  could  have  done  nothing,  but  for  the 
basis  our  own  history  gave  us  to  work  on.'* 

*'AVell/*  said  I,  ''I  can't  say  that  I  am  sorry  to 
know  that  my  time  will  be  out  long  before  the  earth 
reaches  the  conditions  that  makes  it  necessary  for 
the  inhabitants  to  retreat  underground.  These  spaces 
below  must  indeed  be  queer  places  to  live  in,  for  it 
don't  seem  like  they  would  be  exposed  to  storms, 
as  if  out  of  doors,  and  yet  not  cosy  and  homelike,  as 
if  in  a  house,  and  I  don't  see  how  they  can  be  other- 
wise than  cold  damp  and  glommy — that  is,  viewed 
from  the  stand  point  of  earth.    Am  I  right?" 

*'No,"  he  replied,  "you  are  not.  Those  abodes, 
as  we  have  them  fixed  up  on  the  moon,  you  would 
regard  as  more  delightful  than  anything  you  have 
on  earth,  and  as  equalling  your  dreams  of  paradise. 
There  are  as  you  suppose  no  storms  and  no  extremes 
of  temperature.  There  is  always  a  very  light  breeze 
blowing,  half  the  time  in  one  direction,  and  half  in 
the  other.  This  is  caused  by  the  action  of  the  sun 
on  the  external  continent,  as  it  progressively  passes 
over  it  from  east  to  west.  There  is  always  fog  and 
cloud  at  all  the  entrances  to  the  interior  continent 
that  prevent  the  radiation  of  heat  and  help  preserve 
an  even  temperature  within.  All  the  inhabited 
chambers  are  made  as  bright  as  sunlight  by  immense 
and  numerous  electric  lights,  which  are  placed  with 
reference  to  the  best,  effects  both  from  a  utilitarian 
and  an  artistic  point  of  view.     They  are  generally 


Life  In  and  On  the-  Moon  63 

placed  at  great  elevations,  and  are  often  arranged 
to  imitate  the  constellations  of  the  heavens,  so  that 
looking  lip,  one  may  see  a  portion  of  the  sky  as  he 
would  see  it  from  the  external  continent,  and  by 
traveling  about  among  the  various  interior  provin- 
ces, he  can  see  the  whole  of  it.  In  some  of  the  cham- 
bers, the  lights  are  made  to  represent  the  members 
of  the  solar  system  and  each  one  is  caused  to  make 
the  movements  properly,  belonging  to  it,  the  whole 
constituting  a  planetarium  on  an  immense  scale— in 
some  instances — several  miles  in  diameter  and  three 
miles  above  the  floor." 

''I  can  well  imagine  the  glory  of  such  scenery 
and  such  possibilities,"  said  I,  "but  I  do  not  see  by 
what  mechanism  you  can  accomplish  such  results." 

''You  must  remember,"  he  replied,  ''that  we 
have  resources,  that  your  race  does  not  possess.  With 
you  a  great  many  things  would  be  practically  out  of 
the  question  that  with  us  are  very  easy.  In  the  first 
place,  we  are  a  flying  race  as  you  see,  and  this  means 
a  great  deal  on  the  moon's  external  continent,  and 
still  more  in  the  internal  continent,  where  on  ac- 
count of  the  attraction  of  the  earth  and  the  hump, 
our  weight  is  much  reduced  without  a  correspond- 
ing reduction  of  strength.  The  fluttering  and  flying 
about  of  crowds  overhead  is  one  of  the  pleasing 
features  of  our  life. 

In  the  second  place,  the  power  of  neutralizing 
the  gravity  of  metals,  as  I  have  explained  to  you, 
enables  us  to  erect  works  miles  above  the  ground 
more  easily  than  you  do  at  the  surface.  In  fact  the 
works  erect  themselves  and  the  most  we  do  is  to 
tether  them  at  the  proper  height  to  keep  them  from 


64  Tlie   Lunarian   Professor 

going  too  far.  AVhen  motion  is  required  to  be  given 
them,  the  globes  of  light  are  sometimes  attached  to 
a  car  that  is  made  to  run  on  a  single  rail  elliptical 
track,  which  may  be  suspendid  at  any  elevation  and 
reduced  to  a  minimum  weight  by  proper  adjustments 
of  its  gravitation,  the  light  globe  being  either  sus- 
pended from  the  car  or  floating  above  it.  The  el- 
liptical orbit  is  inclined  enough  to  enable  gravity  to 
propel  the  car.  An  automatic  shunt  turns  on  repul- 
sion when  the  car  reaches  the  lowest  part  of  the  or- 
bit and  it  is  then  forwarded  on  the  up  grade  portion, 
shunted  again  at  the  top  and  so  on  perpetually.  An- 
other machine  often  used  is  a  hollow  cylindrical 
stem  suspended  from  the  dome,  having  a  series  of 
wheels,  concentric  with  the  cylinder,  one  above  an- 
other and  caused  to  revolve  horizontally  at  different 
rates,  by  clockwork  inside  the  cylinder.  Globes  of 
light  are  suspended  by  long  wires  to  these  wheels, 
which  by  their  revolution,  at  varying  rates,  cause 
the  globes  by  centrifugal  motion  to  describe  large  or 
small  orbits  as  desired.  All  sorts  of  eccentric  and 
peculiar  motions  are  imparted  to  the  globes  by  varia- 
tions in  the  regularity  of  the  revolutions  of  the 
wheels,  the  spheres  falling  toward  the  center  when 
the  motion  is  slow  and  fljnng  outward  when  it  is 
fast.  The  mazes  of  a  cotillion,  are  often  imitated, 
and  the  performance  is  called  the  'dancing  of  tho 
spheres'.  This  is  also  accompanied  by  music,  some- 
times by  local  bands  situated  on  the  ground  playinjj^ 
in  concert  with  the  movement,  at  other  times  by  im- 
mense instruments  operated  by  the  same  machinery 
that  drives  the  spheres. 

It  is  not  difficult  for  you  to  imagine  the  beauty 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  65 

and    grandeur    of    some   of  these  overhead  scenes. 
Of  course  the  power  used  is  electricity,  and  it  is 
used  liberally  and  freely  since  its  cost    is    merely 
nominal.    Heat  as  well  as  light  is  supplied  through 
the  same  means  and  used  for  all  purposes,  domestic, 
industrial  and  public.    Our  houses  are  very  tasteful 
and  often  highly  ornamental.     The  architecture  is 
light  and  graceful  and  suited  to  a  mild  and  quiet 
climate,  for  we  have  the  pleasant  air  of  your  tropics 
without  their  storms  or    excessive   heat.     A   slight 
sprinkle  of  rain  is  all  we  ever  have  in  the  shape  of 
a  storm  in  any  part  of  the  interior  continent,  and 
these  sprinkles  are  rendered  periodical  by  artificial 
means.     There  are  no  wide  agricultural  tracts  with 
us,  nor  densely  populated  cities,  but  the  population 
is  distributed  in  towns,  and  continuous  villages  line 
the  roads,  each  of  which  is  devoted  to  some  prin- 
cipal   productive    industry.      There    are    principal 
streets  that  run  miles,  passing  through  and  connect- 
ing these  towns,  and  often  bending  so  as  to  make  a 
complete  circuit.     The  streets  are  wide  and  we  are 
always  furnished  with  a  number  of  rail  tracks,  and 
paved  with  a  hard  smooth  material — sometimes  stone 
and  sometimes  iron  or  alumina.     The  only  vehicles 
used  on  the  streets,  besides  the  rail  cars  are  light, 
private  and  pleasure  carriages,  propelled  by  storage 
batteries.    The  roads  that  unite  the  various  internal 
provinces  to  each  other  and  to  the  external  continent, 
are  chiefly  the  gravity  roads,  that  I  have  already 
described  to  you.    In  some  cases  to  save  room,  the 
roads  are  built  in  stories,  one  track  above  another. 
The  work  shops  and  farms,  are  sitiaated  conveni- 
ently near  on  streets  parallel  to  the  main  thorough- 


66  The  Lunarian  Professor 

fares,  and  their  products  are  conveyed  from  them, 
and  their  materials  to  them,  on  roads  laid  on  thos^^ 
streets." 

*'I  should  like  to  know  something  about  your 
social  and  political  arrangements,  your  industrial 
economy  and  your  form  of  government,"  said  I.  "Il* 
the  government  controls  the  increase  of  population, 
I  suppose  it  must  control  labor  and  production ;  and 
consumption  too — how  is  that?" 

"The  sort  of  control,  which  the  government  ex- 
ercise is  almost  exclusively  advisory.  There  is  no 
government  control  in  the  sense  of  the  term  as  used 
on  earth.  All  productive  labor  is  expended  for  the 
creation  of  common  property,  to  which,  when  creat- 
ed, every  individual  has  equal  title.  Not  the  slight- 
est compulsion  however  is  put  upon  labor,  nor  the 
least  prohibition  upon  consumption." 

''Do  you  mean  to  say  that  nobody  is  obliged  to 
work,  and  yet  everyone  can  take  what  he  wants 
from  the  common  stock?" 

''Yes." 

"Then  yours  is  an  angelic  race,  truly.  TVe  have 
not  anything  like  that  on  this  earth,  and  I  reckon, 
we  never  will  have." 

"The  human  race,  as  a  whole,  is  not  yet  like  it, 
although  the  tendency  is  certainly  that  way  and  it 
would  be  rash  to  predict  it  never  will  be,  but  there 
are  other  and  older  races  on  earth,  that  you  over- 
look. Consider  our  relatives  the  Bees ;  did  you  ever 
see  a  lazy  bee  or  one  that  wanted  more  than  a  rea- 
sonable share  of  the  common  property?" 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "it  has  become  instinctive  with 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  6"^ 

them  to  work  and  their  wants  are  likewise,  only 
such  as  instinct  dictates." 

"Instincts,"  he  replied,  ''are  only  crystaliza- 
tions  of  reason.  They  are  habits  become  hereditary 
to  such  a  degree  that  the  person  is  liable  to  fall 
into  them  with  little  or  no  teaching.  I  know  that 
the  people  of  the  human  race  pride  themselves 
greatly  on  the  assumed  fact  that  they  act  from 
reason,  while  other  animals  act  from  instinct,  but 
the  fact  is,  that  99  out  of  every  100  good  acts  that 
human  beings  perform,  are  done  through  instinct 
or  inherited  disposition  to  do  them,  while  only  one 
is  reasoned  out.  And  your  teachers  appear  to  un- 
derstand that  your  instincts  alone  are  to  be  de- 
pended upon  to  produce  good  actions,  since  they 
always  depreciate  and  throw  suspicion  on  good 
acts  not  done  from  the  "heart"  that  is,  not  done 
from  instinct.  They  give  little  or  no  credit  for 
such  actions,  and  strive  by  cultivation  of  the  emo- 
tions to  substitute  disinterested  impulse  or  in  other 
w^ords  instinct,  for  mere  calculating  reason.  Now 
we  Lunarians  have  long  since  passed  this  stage. 
Lazy  Lunarians  are  as  impossible  as  lazy  bees.  To 
work  is  instinctive  with  us  and  so  is  consideration 
for  the  rights  and  dues  of  the  rest,  and  as  every- 
one can  be  relied  on  to  obey  his  instincts,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  watch  any  one  to  keep  him  from  plun- 
dering the  public  or  shirking  out  of  his  duties." 

"There  have  often  been  socialistic  communities 
with  us,"  said  I,  "that  have  endeavored  to  live  on 
the  principles  you  speak  of.  But  their  lives  have 
been  of  the  most  monotonous  dead  level  sort.  There 
is  no  chance  for  individuality  or  for  the  develop- 


G8  TJie   Lunarian   Professor 

ment  or  exercise  of  the  superior  talents,  which 
some  are  certain  to  possess  in  a  higher  degree  than 
others.  They  are  merely  little  despotisms  and  en- 
dure only  while  their  leaders  are  people  of  excep- 
tional ability.  AVe  do  not  regard  such  a  state  of 
society'  as  desirable  even  if  it  could  be  made  per- 
manent. 

"With  us,"  he  replied,  *'the  greatest  liberty 
is  accorded  to  the  individual,  but  so  well  grounded 
is  our  predisposition  to  work  for  the  benefit  of  the 
community,  that  no  one  has  any  fear  or  suspicion 
that  another  is  not  doing  what  he  ought,  or  is  able 
to  do  for  the  common  good.  There  are  extensive 
colleges  for  art,  literature,  science  and  invention, 
accessible  to  any  according  to  their  several  tastes. 
If  a  person  thinks,  for  example,  that  he  has  the 
conception  of  a  valuable  invention,  he  is  admitted 
to  the  college  of  invention  where  there  is  very 
facility  and  appliance  for  developing  the  idea  and 
constructing  the  machine  or  instrument.  In  these 
colleges  there  are  depositories  of  models  something 
like  your  patent  office,  and  professors  are  on  hand 
familiar  with  physics,  chemistry  and  kindred  scien- 
ces to  advise  and  assist  the  inventor.  As  they  are 
all  working  for  the  good  of  all,  the  inventor  is 
not  afraid  his  idea  will  be  stolen,  he  finds  the  as- 
sistance he  gets  invaluable,  and  is  often  saved  the 
useless  labor  of  doing  something  that  has  been 
done  already  or  attempting  something  in  contra- 
vention of  the  principles  of  physics  and  therefore 
impossible.  An  invention,  when  made,  is  the  prop- 
erty of  the  public,  and  if  it  lightens  labor  in  any 


Life  In  and  On  the  Moon  69 

direction,  it  allows  it  to  take  on  greater  activity 
in  some  other  direction. 

All  articles  that  can  be  produced  in  quantities 
by  machinery  are  distributed  to  everybody  desir- 
ing them,  but  individual  works  of  art  as  great  pic- 
tures and  statuary  and  rare  and  curious  things,  are 
placed  in  public  art  galleries,  libraries  etc.,  acces- 
sible to  all." 

"Well,"  said  I,  ''this  is  extremely  pretty  and 
no  doubt  it  w^orks  all  right  with  you  wise  Luna- 
rians, but  I  cannot  help  imagining  what  sort  of  a 
mess  we  should  make  of  it  on  earth,  if  we  adopted 
the  same  policy.  I  admit  that  many  of  us  are 
workers  by  instinct  or  at  least  a  semi  instinct,  that 
controls  us  after  some  habit  got  by  practice,  and 
it  is  also  instinctive  with  us  to  care  for  the  young 
and  those  who  are  helpless  from  disease  or  old  age, 
but  there  are  plenty  of  people  w^ith  whom  it  is 
equally  instinctive  never  to  do  a  lick  of  work  if 
they  can  help  it,  and  at  the  same  time  their  in- 
stincts allow  them  to  help  themselves  to  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  labor  of  others  without  any  limit,  ex- 
cept that  of  forcible  restraint." 

''The  trouble  with  you,"  said  he,  '*is  that  you 
have  no  control  over  the  production  of  your  peo- 
ple. You  are  like  the  civilized  Indians,  that  once 
inhabited  some  of  the  western  parts  of  your  coun- 
try, who  were  constantly  threatened  and  invaded 
and  finally  exterminated  by  wild  and  barbarous 
neighbors,  except  that  they  were  physically  too 
weak  to  help  themselves. 

It  is  true  your  civilization  is  now  in  little  dan- 
ger from  foreign  savages,  but  you  allow  yourselves 


70  Tlie  Lunarian   Professor 

to  be  steadily  invaded  by  fresh  generations,  of 
them  born  in  your  midst,  and  the  crudeness  and 
injustice  of  your  political  and  social  conditions, 
are  such  as  to  give  but  slight  encouragement  to  the 
development  of  the  unselfish  instincts  in  anybody. 
Wealth  carries  power  and  power  commands  re- 
spect. Your  wealth  is  distributed  without  justice, 
sometimes  by  accident  and  to  those  who  are  mere- 
ly lucky,  at  other  times  to  those  who  are  simply 
selfish  greedy  and  unscrupulous,  and  generally  least 
to  those  who  create  it,  and  so  luck  and  greed  be- 
come prominent  objects  for  your  attention  and 
emulation.  How  very  young  your  race  is  and  how 
much  you  have  to  learn ! ' ' 


CHAPTER  V. 
"Mundane  Prognostication  "—The  Profile  of  Time. 

*'You  said  something  about  a  college  of  "Mun- 
dane prognostication,"  you  have  on  the  moon 
where  you  study  our  affairs  and  forecast  our 
future.  I  should  be  infinitely  gratified  to  know 
what  your  learned  college  has  figured  out  for  us 
— if  it  is  no  secret." 

"It  is  no  secret  at  all,"  he  answered,  "and  I 
shall  be  glad  to  give  you  such  insight  in  j^our 
future,  as  our  profiles  in  their  present  condition 
afford." 

With  this  he  drew  from  a  receptacle  something 


^'Mundane  Prognostication'*  71 

like  a  pocket  under  his  right  lower  wing,  a  cylin- 
drical roll  of  paper  three  inches  in  diameter,  and 
ten  inches  long,  exactly  resembling  a  roll  of  pro- 
file paper,  such  as  civil  engineers  use  in  plotting 
the  profile  of  a  survey  for  a  railroad.  Familiarity 
wish  such  things  together  with,  the  idea  that  he 
intended  handing  it  to  me,  caused  me  almost  in- 
voluntarily to  reach  out  for  it,  but  he  retained  it 
in  his  own  hands  and  began  with  great  dexterity 
unrolling  it,  holding  the  scroll  in  his  right  hand, 
while  with  his  left  he  rolled  up  again  the  unrolled 
end.  As  he  held  these  two  rolled  ends  in  his  front 
hands  a  yard  apart  with  that  length  of  the  pro- 
file open  between  them,  he  used  his  middle  pair  of 
hands  to  point  out  the  various  marks  and  lines  on 
the  paper  to  which  attention  was  directed.  I  could 
not  help  observing  what  a  vast  advantage  one  has 
with  four  hands  instead  of  two.  When  we  hold  a 
profile  thus,  there  is  nothing  left  to  point  with,  but 
the  nose. 

In  plotting  the  profile  of  a  railroad  survey,  the 
engineer  uses  paper  several  feet  long  and  8  to 
12  inches  wide,  covered  with  fine  horizontal  lines, 
running  the  whole  length  of  it  and  ruled  so  close 
together,  that  there  are  from  20  to  50  lines  to  the 
inch.  Then  there  are  other  lines  drawn  across  the 
paper  at  right  angles  to  the  first,  and  one-fourth 
of  an  inch  apart.  These  last  represent  distances  of 
100  feet  each;  or  "stations;"  while  each  of  the 
spaces  betAveen  the  horizontal  lines  is  called  a  foot. 
Having  the  survey  of  a  line  of  stations  with  the 
relative  height  of  each,  ascertained  by  a  leveling 
instrument,  the  line  is  plotted  on  this  paper  so  that 


^2  The  Lunarian  Professor 

its  distance  from  the  lower  edge  of  the  paper  at 
each  station  corresponds  with  the  height  of  the 
ground  at  that  station.  The  irregular  line  thus 
formed  is  a  fac  simile  of  the  surface  of  the  ground 
with  its  vertical  undulations  and  irregularities. 
The  engineer  then  draws  a  grade  line  on  this  pro- 
file of  the  ground,  that  indicates  the  position  of 
the  surface  of  the  road  bed,  as  he  intends  it  to  be 
when  finished.  In  some  places  this  line  is  above 
the  ground  line  and  this  indicates  that  here  is  to 
be  a  fill.  In  other  places  it  runs  below,  and  this 
shows  a  cut. 

Now  the  profile  that  the  Lunarian  Professor  of 
"Mundane  Prognostication"  held  in  his  multiple 
hands  (I  shall  call  him  the  Professor  hereafter) 
very  much  resembled  in  appearance  that  just  de- 
scribed, except  that  instead  of  only  one  there  were 
several  profiles  on  this  one  strip  of  paper,  one 
above  another.  In  each  one  there  was  the  irregu- 
lar surface  line  accompanied  with  the  more  or  less 
straight  grade  line  showing  cuts  in  some  places 
and  fills  in  others.  The  professor  explained  these 
profiles  to  be  graphic  exhibits  of  the  state  of  vari- 
ous human  institutions  and  conditions  as  they  ap- 
peared during  a  continuous  term  of  time  begining 
in  the  past,  and  extending  into  a  far  distant  future. 

After  examining  these  profiles  a  short  time,  I 
had  little  difficulty  in  getting  the  ideas  intended 
to  be  conveyed  by  them.  They  will  be  readily  un- 
derstood without  much  explanation.  Thus  the  line 
of  *' muscular  development"  is  shown  in  the  remote 
past  as  being  almost  up  to  grade,  but  as  gradually 
falling  below  it  in  the  course  of  time,  then  rising 


^'Mundane  Prognostication"  73 

again  and  coming  almost  to  the  grade  line  about 
the  year  2500,  but  after  that  gradually  falling 
away  again.  Selfish  instinct,  which  has  always 
shown  heavy  cutting,  comes  down  nearly  to  grade, 
about  the  year  7200.  While  altruistic  instinct  that 
regards  the  common  welfare  and  has  been  below 
grade,  always,  but  at  times  higher  than  st  present, 
is  seen  to  rise  and  come  to  grade  about  the  same 
time.  Health  has  always  shown  a  fill,  often  a  large 
one,  but  gradually  rises  almost  to  grade  about  the 
year  2500.  Crime  has  always  been  a  cut,  but  dis- 
appears in  the  future  about  the  same  time  as 
theology. 

Peace,  which  is  a  condensation  or  composite  of 
all  the  rest  and  the  end  for  which  they  all  exist, 
has  always  been  a  fill  and  always  must  be  until 
human  actions  become  absolutely  instinctive  and 
unconscious,  which  they  never  can  do  until  men 
have  been  acted  upon  and  molded  by  habit  by 
every  stimulation  possible  to  their  environment. 
Reasoned  acts  are  those  which  arise  from  stimula- 
tions, that  are  new  or  unusual  to  us,  and  ncAV 
stimulations  will  continue  to  come  as  long  as 
knowledge  increases  or  continues  to  be  pursued,  or 
to  be  thrust  upon  us.  If  the  accumulation  of 
knowledge  should  stop,  actions  would  finally  be- 
come instinctive,  and  unconscious.  This  would  be 
complete  absence  of  misery,  and  also  absence  of 
happiness,  but  perfect  peace.  So  the  grade  line 
of  Peace  is  a  dead  level.  Above  it  is  the  ragged 
line  of  misery  always  a  great  cut,  and  below  it  is 
the  line  oi  happiness  always  a  fill,  somewhat  lighter 


74  The   Lunarian  Professor 

than  the  cut  above  the  line,  and  terminating  in  grade 
soon  after  it. 

I  inquired  of  the  Professor,  the  principle,  upon 
which  predictions  of  the  future  Avere  worked  out. 
He  replied,  that  the  principles  were  exceedingly 
simple,  although  the  actual  working  out  of  any 
scheme  of  the  future  involved  the  consideration  of 
such  a  vast  number  of  details  and  conditions,  as 
to  render  it  a  labor  of  magnitude.  ** Prediction," 
said  he,  **is  only  past  history,  projected  forward. 
If  we  know  precisely  what  happened  in  the  past, 
our  knowledge  will  include  the  antecedent  causes 
of  the  events.  Events  beget  events,  and  they  suc- 
ceed each  other  as  one  generation  succeeds  an- 
other. Knowing  the  character  and  condition  of  one 
generation  and  the  modifications  that  have  been 
made  in  it  by  its  environment,  we  have  the  prin- 
cipal data  for  estimating  the  character  of  its  suc- 
cessor and  so  on.  The  principal  uncertainty  we 
encounter,  is  in  the  prediction  of  changes  in  the 
environment  itself.  Thus  the  invention  of  a  self 
portable  power  like  steam  made  the  invention  of 
railroads  possible  and  the  construction  of  rail- 
roads completely  changed  the  environment  of  the 
succeeding  generations. 

Now  it  is  difficult  to  forecast  just  what  partic- 
ular turn  invention  will  take,  but  it  is  not  impos- 
sible, because  inventions  constitute  a  race  with 
generations  one  begetting  another.  Knowing  all 
that  is  known  to-day  makes  it  possible  to  see  what 
this  knowledge  will  lead  to  to-morrow.  The  trou- 
ble is  for  one  to  know  all  that  is  known.  As  I 
have  already  mentioned,  our  own  Lunarian  history 


''Mundane  Prognostication'  75 

greatly  aids  us  in  our  study  of  your  future,  for 
we  have  passed  through  an  experience,  which,  while 
it  is  different  from  what  yours  has  been  or  will 
be,  is  parallel  and  comparable  with  it.  And  mak- 
ing due  allowance  for  the  difference  in  physical 
structure  of  the  two  races  and  considering  that  we 
are  500,000  years  older  than  you,  we  have  only  to 
consult  our  past  in  order  to  get  your  future,  or 
something  much  like  it,  for  many  generations  to 
come. 

"These  profiles  of  your's  Professor,"  said  I,  *'are 
evidently  the  result  of  much  learned  detail  work 
and  they  are  of  extreme  interest  and  value  to  the 
philosophical  and  scientific  student.  But  to  com- 
mon people  the  details  themselves  are  more  inter- 
esting, because  they  are  more  easy  to  be  under- 
stood and  come  nearer  to  the  common  life.  Could 
you  not  favor  me  with  some  of  the  future  history 
of  our  planet  and  expecially  of  the  United  States 
and  of  the  State  of  Minnesota.  Any  of  the  facts 
that  you  have  prognosticated  and  from  which  you 
have  deduced  the  generalizations  that  you  embody 
in  your  profiles,  would  be  of  great  interest. 

He  seemed  a  little  disappointed  at  this  request, 
as  no  doubt  his  habits  of  thought  had  made  him 
familiar  with  and  attached  to  the  comprehensive 
and  wholesale  treatment  of  these  questions,  and  he 
looked  upon  the  detailed  story  as  a  means  to  an 
end  and  containing  but  little  interest  in  itself.  But 
it  is  easier  to  generalize  from  details,  than  to  con- 
struct the  details.  However  he  complied,  observ- 
ing that  he  would  be  compelled  to  get  these  de- 
tails in  part  from  his    memory,    which    however 


76  The  Lunarian  Professor 

would  be  prompted  and  refreshed  by  the  general 
profile  he  held  in  his  hands. 

''I  will  take  my  stand,"  sand  he,  *'at  about  the 
year  2,000  of  your  era,  and  then  by  looking  for- 
ward and  backward  along  these  lines,  I  think  I 
can  recover  the  principal  factors  that  have  entered 
into  their  make-up.  This  will  also  allow  me  to  give 
you  the  descriptions  in  the  past  tense  as  events 
that  have  been  accomplished  up  to  that  time  and 
from  that  date  we  will  also  look  forward,  for  the 
events  subsequent  to  it." 

It  occurred  to  me  that  he  must  be  tired  of  hold- 
ing the  profile  so  long  between  his  outstretched 
hands  and  so  I  offered  to  hold  it  for  him  awhile, 
or  at  least  hold  one  end  of  it.  At  that  he  shifted 
the  rolls  from  his  front  to  his  middle  pair  of  hands, 
by  w^hich  maneuver  he  gave  me  to  understand  that 
he  had  abundant  resources  for  resting  himself  with- 
out outside  help.  How  I  did  envy  him  that  extra 
pair  of  hands. 

He  then  began  as  follows: 

''The  close  of  the  19th  century,  was  remarkable 
as  being  a  turning  point  in  American  affairs  and 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era.  Previous  to  that 
time  the  United  States  had  been  a  nation  very 
much  to  itself.  It  had  kept  aloof  from  the  politics 
of  the  rest  of  the  world  and  had  no  policy  in  re- 
gard to  it  except  to  prohibit  European  nations 
from  meddling  in  affairs  of  the  western  hemisphere 
or  acquiring  any  further  possessions  in  it.  But 
before  the  century  was  out  public  opinion  was  ac- 
customing itself  to  the  idea  that  the  foremost  na- 
tion of  the  earth  ought  to  take  a  more  active  and 


^'Mundane  Prognosticationf*  ')!^ 

influential  part  in  the  general  affairs  of  the  world. 
The  first  thing  designed  to  give  weight  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  country  was  the  development  of  a 
powerful  navy.  It  is  power  that  inspires  the  con- 
sideration and  respect  of  others.  It  was  a  favorite 
idea  with  many  of  the  leaders  of  political  thought 
that  arbitration  might  become  the  last  resort  in 
the  settlement  of  international  disputes  instead  of 
the  ancient  plan,  by  which  the  contestants  tem- 
porarily laid  aside  such  civilization  as  they  might 
have  acquired,  reduced  themselves  back  to  bar- 
barism in  murdering  each  other,  destroying  proper- 
ty, plundering  commerce,  and  often  spending  more 
money  several  times  over  than  the  matter  in  dis- 
pute was  worth.  But  even  these  statesmen  saw 
that  a  plan  favoring  peace  would  come  with  much 
more  force  and  authority  from  a  nation  having 
power  to  enforce  it  by  war,  and  so  all  were  glad 
to  see  the  great  navy  built. 

As  the  public  lands  became  transferred  to  pri- 
vate ownership  and  prices  steadily  went  up,  at- 
tention was  turned  to  the  sparsely  settled  terri- 
tories of  neighboring  countries,  and  the  elements  of 
a  great  party  in  favor  of  their  annexation  were 
developed  in  the  ranks  of  all  the  parties,  at  the 
same  time  the  theories  of  the  land  tax  advocates 
received  additional  attention,  especially  from  me- 
chanics and  the  manufacturing  classes.  They  reas- 
oned that  the  increase  in  the  value  of  land  ought 
to  belong  to  the  state  instead  of  to  the  people 
who  had  bought  the  land,  and  if  the  state  had 
that  increase,  the  interest  on  it  would  support  th^ 
government    and   taxes    could   be   abolished.     The 


'i8  The  Lunarian  Prnfrssof 

enormous  amounts  raised  by  taxation  came  at  last 
from  labor,  they  said,  part  of  it  in  the  way  of 
tariffs  on  goods  imported  and  consumed  by  work- 
ers and  part  by  direct  taxation  on  the  products  of 
labor  and  even  on  the  means  and  appliances — tools 
shops  and  factories — by  which  wealth  was  produc- 
ed. This  mode  of  taxation  they  said  was,  as  far 
as  it  went,  a  ban  placed  upon  industry  and  a  pen- 
alty upon  the  creation  of  wealth.  They  proposed 
therefore  to  take  all  the  taxes  off  from  the  pro- 
ducts of  labor  and  seize  the  rents  of  land  or  so 
much  of  them  as  might  be  required  for  the  support 
of  the  government,  in  that  way  getting  the  interest 
on  the  increase  in  the  value  of  the  land  that  had 
taken  place  since  it  passed  into  private  hands  and 
which  they  denominated  *' unearned  increment.'* 
This  agitation  began  in  your  day — you  must  re- 
member it." 

The  expression  *'in  your  day"  had  at  first  a 
singular  effect  on  me.  I  had  quite  unconsciously 
but  thoroughly  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  Pro- 
fessor's method  and  had  gone  forward  with  him  to 
the  year  2,000  and  followed  closely  his  discussion 
of  things  that  happened  100  years  ago — from  that 
standpoint.  The  sudden  realization  that  my  day 
had  gone  by,  was  startling — **Yes,"  I  said  to  my- 
self, *'that  is  so,  'my  day'  has  gone  by,  my  exist- 
ence has  been  continued  over  a  space  during  which 
I  have  not  lived.  Memory  has  nothing  to  say  of 
it.  It  is  as  if  I  had  slept  it  away.  Well  if  one  is 
asleep,  one  day  to  him,  is  as  1,000  years — aye, 
eternity ! 


''Mundane  Prognostication''  "^^ 

mat  can  hurt  him  ^vho   is   asleep?     Nothing, 
unless  it  wakes  him  up.  . 

All  this  flashed  through  :ny  bram  m  an  anstan 
and  then  „.y  •  attention  suddenly  -tuWJ;  J^.f, 
the  Professor  had  been  saymg.  Kemember  it. 
Yes  I  remember  it  well.  In  my  day  there  was  a 
Sety  in  Minneapolis  called,  I.;^i-%*J^«./-£ 
Tax  League,  devoted  to  this  agition.  Their  deas 
l:re^hose  Jf  Henry  George,  as  set  forth  by  him  m 
his  able  book  called :  ' '  Progress  and  Poverty. 

<^Yes   well,  to  the  labors  of  this  persistent  and 
aggressi;e  society  are  to  be  attributed  in  a  grea 
measure,  the  radical  change  in   ideas  of  political 
"onom;  that  soon  came  about.     After  much  dis- 
ussion,  petitioning  of  the  legislature,  agitation  m 
the    newspapers,    the    organifiation  of  auxiliary  so- 
cieties, the  presentation  of  the  subject  m  labor  as- 
sociations  etc.,   the  working   classes   m   the   cities 
and  even  the  landless  laborers  on  farms  were  per- 
suaded that  their  interests  lay  in  the  abolition  ot 
all  taxes,  except  those  on  land.     It  was  not  long 
before  these  classes  constituted  a  majority  by  rea- 
son of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  cities.    As  soon  as 
they  found  themselves  in  power,  they  proceeded    o 
get  the  constitution  of  the  state  amended  to  enable 
the  legislature  to  release  all  classes  from  taxation 
except   those   who   possessed  land.     In  your   day 
about  half  the  taxes  had  been  raised  from  land 
and  the  other  half  from  the  buildings  and  improve- 
ments on  the  land  and  from  personal  Property.  It 
was  estimated  that  relieving  the  latter  half,  would 
simply  double  the  tax  on  land  and  so  make  it  about 
four  per  cent  on  its  valuation.    It  was  argued  that 


so  The  Lunarian  Professor 

the  farmer  would  experience  no  chanpre  at  all,  be- 
cause the  additional  tax  put  upon  his  land  would 
no  more  than  equal  that  taken  off  his  houses,  barns, 
stock  and  tools.  The  only  persons  who  would 
lose  by  the  single  tax  would  be  the  speculators, 
who  held  unimproved  land  and  were  waiting  for 
the  labor  and  improvements  of  their  neighbors  to 
raise  its  value,  so  they  could  sell  out  and  get  an 
increase  in  value  which  they  had  done  nothing  to 
earn.  As  these  people  were  looked  upon  as  a  sort 
of  parasites,  they  were  not  regarded  as  having  any 
rights  in  the  matter  that  need  to  be  respected.  All 
that  was  necessary  in  their  case  was  simply  to  out- 
vote them.  The  benefits  of  the  new  system  it  was 
expected  would  fall  upon  the  industrial  classes 
especially  and  directly,  but  w^ould  be  shared  by  all. 
Manufacturing  industries  relieved  of  the  repres- 
sion of  taxation,  would  bound  forward  like  a 
spring  suddenly  released.  Nothing  would  any 
longer  artificially  limit  the  production  of  wealth 
and  the  great  stimulation  it  would  receive  would 
result  in  making  even  articles  of  luxury  so  com^ 
mon  as  to  place  them  within  the  reach  of  everj^one. 
The  land  speculating  class,  while  admitting  that 
the  rest  of  the  people  would  be  benefitted  by  the 
single  tax,  claimed  that  it  would  be  done  at  their 
expense  and  unjustly.  They  had  bought  the  land 
and  paid  for  it  and  the  state  had  got  the  money. 
With  this  money,  and  the  interest  on  it,  the  state 
had  built  the  university,  the  state  capitol,  the  pen- 
itentiary, the  charitable  institutions  and  innumera- 
ble school  houses.  In  other  w^ords,  they  had  given 
the  state  the  interest  on  their  money  and  taken  in 


''Mundane  Prognostication*  81 

lieu  of  it  the  anticipated  increase  in  the  value  of 
the  land.  Moreover,  they  had  paid  taxes  on  the 
land  as  they  would  have  done  on  the  money,  if 
they  had  retained  it.  And  so  they  maintained  that 
the  increment  in  the  value  of  the  land  was  not  un- 
earned. It  was  simply  the  interest  on  their  money 
which  would  have  brought  a  like  profit  if  it  had 
been  invested  in  mining  manufacturing,  banking 
or  steamboating.  They  admitted  that  in  some  cases 
this  profit  had  been  greater  than  that  derived  from 
other  sorts  of  investments,  but  in  many  cases  it 
was  far  less.  They  said  the  single  tax  meant  a 
confiscation  of  the  land  and  the  resumption  of  it 
by  the  state  that  had  once  sold  it;  because  it 
would  very  soon,  if  not  from  the  first,  take  the  entire 
amount  of  the  rent  which  would  make  the  fee  of 
the  land  worthless  to  the  owner.  It  would  no  long- 
er be  possible  to  mortgage  it  or  to  sell  it  and  the 
owner  would  lose  his  investment  and  be  reduced 
to  a  mere  tenant,  who  could  hold  it  only  as  long  as 
he  paid  the  rent  to  the  state  the  same  as  any  other 
tenant,  and  if  it  were  unimproved,  the  owner  would 
have  no  inducement  to  pay  the  rent  and  would 
simply  abandon  it.  In  view  of  that,  they  said,  that 
the  state  should  at  least  pay  back  the  purchase 
money  it  had  received  with  interest  at  the  rates 
prevalent  during  the  time  that  she  had  possessed 
it,  or  failing  that,  she  should  postpone  so  radical  a 
change  or  make  it  gradual  by  annually  increasing 
the  assessment  upon  land  and  diminishing  it  upon 
other  property,  and  thus  consume  at  least  thirty 
years  in  making  the  transfer  complete. 

The  impatience  of  the  tax  reformers  would  not 


82  The   Lunarian   Professor 

allow  any  such  postponement  as  this.  They  said 
they  did  not  propose  to  wait  a  whole  generation 
to  have  this  wrong  made  right. 

They  said  the  state  never  had  any  right  to  sell 
the  land  in  the  first  place.  The  people's  ownership 
therein  was  inalienable  and  any  pretended  sale  was 
void  the  same  as  the  sale  of  the  property  of  a 
minor  for  taxes,  or  the  sale  of  a  stolen  horse.  The 
real  owner  had  a  right  to  take  his  property  where- 
ever  he  could  find  it,  without  compensation  to  the 
pretended  owner  who  happened  to  be  in  possession 
as  a  party  to  a  fraudulent  sale.  So  they  held  that 
the  people  could  take  possession  of  their  land  if 
they  saw  fit,  but  they  agreed  that  it  would  be  bet- 
ter policy,  to  leave  the  claimants  in  possession  and 
merely  take  all  the  rents  except  a  small  percentage 
to  be  left  in  the  hands  of  the  claimants  as  compen- 
sation to  them  for  collecting  and  paying  over  said 
rents  to  the  state.  These  rents  moreover  were  to 
be  called  taxes  instead  of  rents. 

The  majority  having  without  serious  effort 
brought  about  a  reconciliation  between  their  logic 
and  their  interests,  proceeded  to  put  their  conclusions 
into  operation.  The  constitution  of  Minnesota  was 
amended  in  due  course  and  the  new  plan  put  into 
execution  with  much  growling  and  protest  on  the 
part  of  the  land  owners,  but  without  violence  or 
serious  trouble,  all  the  rest  of  the  country  looking 
on  with  great  curiosity. 

The  effects  very  soon  began  to  show  themselves. 
Nearly  the  whole  tax  being  removed  from  shops 
and  factories,  profits  and  manufacturing  became  at 
once    very    considerably    enhanced.      This    induced 


^'Mundane   Prognostication"  S3 

numbers  of  manufacturers  to  emigrate  from  other 
states  and  from  Europe  to  Minnesota,  and  so  the 
population  and  wealth  of  the  cities  increased  with 
unexampled  rapidity.  By  the  year  1925,  the  pop- 
ulation of  Minneapolis  had  reached  1,780,000  and 
that  of  St.  Paul,  was  over  half  as  great." 

"Then,"  said  I,  ''the  cities  must  have  grown 
solidly  together  and  formed  a  continuous  town." 

"Not  at  all,"  he  replied,  "University  and  Como 
avenues,  became  continuous  streets,  with  good  res- 
idences. But  both  cities  became  compactly  built 
up  with  tall  and  substantial  buildings  for  offices, 
dwellings  and  factories.  Nearly  everybody  that 
paid  rent  lived  in  flats.  These  buildings  were  ten 
to  16  stories  high,  fire  proof,  furnished  with  ele- 
vators, electric  heat  and  light.  In  connection  with 
many  of  them,  were  cook  shops,  in  which  the  ten- 
ants could  get  their  provisions  cooked  at  cheaper 
rates  than  they  could  do  it  themselves,  and  save 
their  own  time  for  other  employment.  A  great 
many  women  who  in  your  day,  would  have  been 
kept  at  home  all  day  to  cook  the  meals  for  a  small 
family  were  enabled  to  seek  profitable  employment 
in  various  kinds  of  shops  factories  and  offices,  or 
had  their  time  for  recreation  or  leisure. 

Cooking  became  a  regular  profession  and  people 
no  longer  cooked  for  themselves  to  any  greater 
extent  than  they  doctored  themselves.  Kindergar- 
tens were  likewise  attached  to  these  great  co-opera- 
tive dwellings,  in  which  those  too  young  to  go  to 
school,  were  looked  after  in  the  absence  of  their 
parents. 

As  mechanics  and  people  of  moderate  incomes 


84  The  Lunarian  Professor 

could  live  not  only  cheaper,  but  far  better  in  these 
buildings,  than  in  separate  homes  at  long  distances 
from  the  business  and  industrial  centers,  as  well 
as  enjoying  far  better  opportunities  for  society 
amusement  etc.,  they  soon  came  to  adopt  that  sort 
of  life  exclusively  and  separate  residences  con- 
tinued to  be  maintained  only  by  the  rich.  The 
growth  of  the  cities  continued  for  many  years  to 
be  confined  to  the  large  spaces  that  in  your  day 
were  left  vacant  far  within  the  corportae  limits. 
People  owning  such  property,  were  anxious  to  get 
it  improved  so  as  to  get  their  taxes  back  in  the 
rents  of  buildings.  Those  owing  suburban  lands 
and  lots  soon  found  that  it  would  be  useless  to  im- 
prove them  as  people  would  not  occupy  them  till 
all  the  more  central  lots  were  occupied.  Much  dis- 
pute arose  as  to  the  way  in  which  such  property 
should  be  taxed.  At  first  the  assessments  of  valu- 
ation on  the  lands  were  as  high  as  they  had  been 
before  the  adoption  of  the  single  tax  plan.  But  it 
was  soon  found  that  the  land  no  longer  possessed 
such  value.  The  value  had  been  prospective  or 
speculative,  and  people  had  paid  as  tax  far  more 
than  the  land  would  rent  for,  and  held  it  and  paid 
taxes  on  it  for  what  it  was  expected  to  bring  in 
the  future.  But  now  so  much  of  the  speculative 
value  was  taken  out  of  this  suburban  land  that  the 
owners  refused  to  pay  the  taxes  in  many  cases,  and 
nobody  would  buy  it  at  the  tax  sales  because  the 
tax  was  more  than  the  rent  for  agricultural  pur- 
poses, and  to  buy  for  the  future  was  like  leasing 
property  and  paying  rent  on  it  for  some  years  be- 
fore occupying  it.*' 


"Mundane  Progtiostication'*  85 

"But,"  I  interposed,  "the  single  tax  people  in 
Minneapolis  disclaimed  the  intention  of  taking  a 
full  rental  of  the  land  in  the  way  of  taxes,  but  only 
enough  to  support  the  government,  and  thought 
that  four  per  cent  of  its  value  would  do  that.  As 
money  was  then  worth  6  per  cent  and  rents  would 
average  about  the  same  the  owner  would  clear  2 
per  cent.  This  they  said  would  be  sufficient  to 
make  the  owner  retain  his  interest  in  the  prop- 
erty.'' 

"Yes,''  he  answered,  "that  was  their  notion, 
but  the  events  turned  out  very  differently. 

When  the  tax  was  two  per  cent  and  the  rents, 
six  per  cent,  the  owner  got  clear  the  equivalent 
of  six  per  cent  on  two  thirds  of  the  value  of  the 
property.  But  when  the  tax  was  increased  to  4 
per  cent,  he  got  the  equivalent  of  six  per  cent  on 
only  one  third  of  it.  Thus  his  net  income  being 
reduced  to  one-half  of  what  it  was,  the  selling  and 
buying  value  of  the  land  was  likewise  reduced  one- 
half.  This  made  no  difference  to  the  tenant  paying 
rent,  he  still  had  to  pay  the  same,  but,  two-thirds 
instead  of  one-third  now  went  to  the  state.  But 
within  the  corporate  limits  of  Minneapolis,  St.  Paul 
and  other  cities,  there  was  a  great  amount  of  un- 
used land,  that  produced  no  rent.  This  unused 
land  constituted  about  three-fourths  of  the  total 
areas  of  those  cities  and  represented  one-third  of 
their  total  land  valuation.  The  very  first  assess- 
ment of  the  new  tax  was  the  signal  for  the  reduc- 
tion in  the  value  of  all  this  property,  fifty  per  cent 
or  more  at  once,  and  every  acre  was  immediately 
thrown  upon  the  market.    By  the  time  of  the  next 


8Q  The  Lunarian   Professor 

assessment  the  assessors  were  obliged  to  recognize 
this  depreciation,  and  so  all  this  land  was  return- 
ed at  half  or  less  than  half  of  what  it  had  been. 
The  loss  of  tax  money  thus  sustained  had  to  be 
made  up  by  a  higher  rate,  and  the  second  levy 
was  placed  at  5  per  cent  instead  of  4  per  cent.  This 
v/orked  a  further  reduction  in  the  values  of  unoc- 
cupied lots  and  by  the  time  of  the  third  assessment 
these  lots  were  estimated  as  having  only  the  value 
of  farm  or  garden  lands ;  and  so  it  became  neces- 
sary to  still  further  increase  the  rate  of  taxation, 
which  was  now  established  at  six  per  cent. 

In  the  meantime  it  began  to  be  discovered  that 
the  owners  of  improved  lots  had  lost  all  the  money 
they  had  invested  in  them.  A  certain  person  who 
had  bought  a  lot  on  Nicollet  ave.,  for  $40,000  and 
erected  a  building  on  it  at  a  cost  of  $40,000  more, 
did  not  for  two  or  three  years  discover  any  great 
difference  in  his  tax,  because  although  it  was  trans- 
ferred from  the  building  to  the  lot  the  whole 
amount  was  nearly  the  same.  But  after  the  tax  as- 
sessment reached  six  per  cent,  the  building  was 
burned  down  just  after  the  expiration  of  the  in- 
surance policy.  The  gentleman  thought  he  had 
lost  half  of  his  property  by  neglecting  the  insur- 
ance, but  in  reality,  he  had  lost  it  about  all.  He 
could  not  mortgage  the  lot  for  enough  to  build  a 
house,  nor  even  for  enough  to  pay  one  year's  tax. 
Nor  could  he  sell  it  for  one-tenth  of  what  he  gave. 
It  was  his  only  on  condition  that  he  continued  to 
pay  a  full  rent  for  it  and  this  he  could  not  do 
unless  he  could  rebuild.  Even  if  he  rebuilt,  his 
pet  income  would  be  only  the  interest  on  the  cost 


''Mundane   Prognostication'*  87 

of  the  building,  he  would  get  no  return  for  the 
lot,  or  at  best,  but  little.  Thus  the  owner  found 
himself  no  better  off  than  a  lease  holder.  He  sim- 
ply had  the  first  right  to  pay  the  rent  for  his  lot 
in  the  way  of  tax.  And  so  it  came  about  that  if 
an  owner  could  not  immediately  build  something 
on  his  lot  that  he  could  rent  to  advantage,  he  sim- 
ply defaulted  on  his  taxes.  The  selling  of  vacant 
property  for  taxes  became  impossible  except  those 
lots  wanted  for  immediate  improvement,  and  not 
even  those  if  several  years'  taxes  were  in  arrears. 
So  the  collection  of  back  taxes  became  impos- 
sible on  all  vacant  porperty. 

The  effect  of  the  single  tax  on  farming  land 
was  much  the  same.  Not  over  seven-tenths  of  the 
arable  land  in  the  state  was  under  actual  cultiva- 
tion. Large  tracts  were  held  by  nonresident  spec- 
ulators. When  the  increased  tax  came  to  be  levied, 
these  lands  were  all  thrown  on  the  market.  The 
depreciation  in  prices  of  these  lands  at  first 
brought  a  considerable  access  of  population,  but 
this  soon  became  checked,  because  the  farmers 
found  that  on  account  of  the  loss  of  taxes  on  these 
lands,  the  rates  had  to  be  increased  and  the  addi- 
tional burden  fell  on  the  resident  farmers.  These 
in  almost  all  cases  owned  considerable  land  they 
did  not  cultivate,  but  were  saving  for  speculation 
or  for  their  children.  Often  a  farmer  owing  160 
acres,  cultivated,  but  40.  As  the  burdens  fell 
heavier  on  this  class,  they  commenced  throwing  up 
the  uncultivated  parts  of  their  farms,  so  that  from 
these  various  causes  in  a  few  years  almost  three- 
fourths  of  the  arable  land  was  without  claimants, 


S8  The  Lunarian  Professor 

and  of  course  yielded  no  taxes.  The  farmers,  then 
found  themselves  greatly  reduced  in  wealth,  the 
lands  they  had  counted  on  as  belonging  to  them, 
now  being  thrown  out  as  commons;  and  even  for 
the  acres  they  cultivated  they  paid  more  in  the 
way  of  taxes  than  would  have  been  considered  a 
fair  rent  in  "Wisconsin  or  Iowa.  Their  net  wealth 
v/as  in  fact  reduced  to  their  buildings,  live  stock, 
and  tools. 

The  lands  themselves,  they  could  neither  sell 
nor  mortgage.  It  was  not  practicable  under  these 
conditions  to  compete  with  the  farmers  in  adjoin- 
ing states,  and  so  in  a  few  years,  the  markets  of 
Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul  came  to  be  supplied  chief- 
ly from  adjoining  states.  Many  of  the  farmers 
ruined  and  disgusted,  gathered  up  what  they  could 
and  left  the  state.  Others  moved  into  the  cities, 
which  were  booming,  and  went  into  other  business. 

There  now  began  to  come  into  the  rural  dis- 
tricts of  the  state,  two  classes  of  settlers  or  rather 
occupants  of  a  different  character.  The  fii*st  of 
these  were  drovers  with  herds  of  cattle  from  ad- 
joining states.  They  drove  their  cattle  about  from 
from  place  to  place,  over  the  abandoned  lands,  but 
never  settled  anywhere  and  as  cattle  were  not  tax- 
able, and  they  claimed  no  land,  they  paid  no  taxes. 
They  also  escaped  taxes  at  their  legitimate  homes 
in  other  states,  because  their  cattle  were  conven- 
iently away  at  assessing  time. 

The  other  class  of  new  occupants  that  came  in, 
were  poor  squatters.  These  brought  little  or  no 
capital,  and  no  enterprise  or  ambition  beyond 
enough  to  supply    the    essentials    of    existence.     A 


'' Mundane  Prognostication"  89 

family  of  this  kind  would  alight  on  an  unoccupied 
spot,  construct  a  cabin  or  a  dug-out,  cultivate 
four  or  five  acres  of  grain  and  potatoes,  and  eke 
out  the  rest  of  a  living  with  a  few  cows  and  pigs. 
Little  or  no  tax  could  be  collec  from  them,  and 
of  course  little  or  no  public  improvements,  such  as 
schools,  bridges,  roads  etc.,  were  accomplisiied 
where  they  squatted  in  any  considerable  force.  In 
short,  it  gradually  came  about  that  the  inhabitants 
of  the  rural  districts  did  but  little  more  than  sus- 
tain themselves.  And  the  state  ceased  almost  en- 
tirely to  be  an  exporter  of  agricultural  products. 
The  cities  however  suffered  nothing  on  this  ac- 
count. They  got  their  supplies  largely  from  the 
neighboring  states,  and  they  became  large  produc- 
ers and  exporters  of  manufactured  articles,  com- 
peting in  that  respect  with  some  of  the  famous 
manufacturing  towns  of  Europe;  and  they  became 
enormously  wealthy. 

The  question  of  taxation  was  however  always 
a  difficult  one.  The  lands  near  the  centers  of  the 
towns  of  course  were  the  most  valuable.  But  lands 
were  never  sold— only  the  buildings— and  any  given 
lot  came  to  be  valued  by  the  kind  of  building  and 
the  amount  of  business  on  it.  So  assessments  final- 
ly had  to  be  fixed  by  an  arbitrary  rule— the  rates 
decreasing  at  a  fixed  ratio  according  to  distance 
from  the  center  of  greatest  business  activity.  The 
rule  had  a  tendency  to  verify  itself  by  compelling 
the  most  valuable  business  to  be  done  in  the  places 
subject  to  the  highest  rates,  since  the  less  valuable 
could  not  afford  it.  By  this  rule  the  rates  in  the 
suburbs  were  low,  and  since  the  buildings  paid  no 


90  The  Lunarian  Pi'ofessor 

tax,  it  often  happened  that  a  millionaire  living  in 
a  $100,000  house  paid  little,  if  any  more  than  a 
laborer  living  in  a  $300  shanty.  But  in  the  course 
of  time  it  came  to  pass  that  notwithstanding  the 
general  prosperity,  there  were  many  who  were 
wretchedly  poor,  made  so  by  bad  management,  ex- 
extravagance,  indolence,  ill  health,  dissipated  hab- 
its, disappointment  and  ill  luck.  These  became 
squatters  in  the  vacant  lands  around  the  outskirts 
of  the  cities.  They  paid  no  rent  and  no  taxes.  It 
was  found  that  it  was  useless  to  evict  them  as  no- 
body could  be  found  with  money  who  could  gain 
anything  by  paying  their  taxes,  as  long  as  there 
was  plenty  of  unoccupied  land.  There  also  came 
to  be  a  positive  sentiment  against  eviction  of  the 
poor  and  so  this  non  tax-paying  class  constantly 
increased  and  finally  included  many  who  w^erc 
able  to  pay,  but  who  shirked  out,  satisfying  their 
consciences  by  the  plea  that  the  government  had 
no  right  to  discriminate,  and  exempt  some  and  not 
others.  These  ideas  expanded  and  finally  crystal- 
lized into  a  political  creed  to  the  effect  that  a  poor 
man  ought  not  to  be  taxed  for  a  spot  on  which 
to  exist  and  bring  up  his  family.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  neither  the  very  poor;  nor  the  very  rich 
whose  property  was  chiefly  in  fine  buildings,  stocks, 
bonds  and  other  personal  effects,  paid  any  consider- 
able amount  of  the  taxes. 

The  taxes  were  paid  by  such  of  the  farmers  as 
had  still  too  valuable  improvements  to  justify 
their  abandonment,  and  by  the  mechanics  and 
merchants    whose    business    and    whose    residences 


''Mundane  Prognostication**  91 

were   packed   in  tall  buildings  on   small   areas   o£ 
ground  in  the  cities. 

The  great  stimulation  of  the  growth  of  the 
Minnesota  cities,  and  their  apparently  great  pros- 
perity, attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  world 
and  aroused  the  spirit  of  emulation  in  the  cities 
of  the  United  States  and  of  the  northern  states 
in  particular.  In  most  of  the  northern  states,  the 
city  populations  controlled  '  the  politics  of  the 
states,  and  there  developed  a  violent  mania  for  fol- 
lowing the  example  of  Minnesota.  There  was  much 
opposition  from  the  conservative  classes,  and  the 
people  were  warned  that  a  policy  that  might  bene- 
fit a  small  section  of  the  nation,  was  not  necessari- 
ly good  for  all.  But  it  was  held  by  many  to  be 
simply  a  measure  of  self  defense  for  cities  to  com- 
pel their  states  to  adopt  the  single  tax,  since  those 
where  this  was  done,  not  merely  flourished,  but 
flourished  at  the  expense  of  those  who  remained 
under  the  old  method.  For  they  attracted  from 
them,  their  manufacturing  establishments  and  this 
was  naturally  followed  by  their  wholesale  trade. 
The  result  was  that  in  a  few  years,  all  the  north- 
ern states  and  several  of  the  southern  states  adopt- 
ed the  single  tax.  The  effect  was  not  so  marked 
in  those  that  came  into  the  plan  among  the  last; 
but  the  first  experienced  much  the  same  stimulation 
and  rapid  growth  that  distinguished  the  Minnesota 
towns,  so  that  in  a  few  years  the  majority  of  the 
population  had  crowded  into  the  cities.  This  ef- 
fect was  brought  about  by  the  action  of  two  causes. 
The  first  cause  was  the  superior  attractions  of  the 
cities  as  places  for  profitable  employment  and  as 


92  The  Lunarian   Professor 

places  for  the  enjoyment  of  life.  The  cities  rapid- 
ly became  socialistic  in  their  policy,  and  constant- 
ly extended  the  scope  of  the  functions  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  municipality  soon  acquired  the 
ownership  of  the  lighting  plants,  the  water  works 
and  street  car  lines.  These  were  run  at  first  as 
speculative  enterprises,  the  cities  selling  light  and 
w^ater  to  private  individuals,  but  the  people  soon 
demanded  that  these  things  should  be  free  as  the 
public  libraries,  schools,  university  and  parks,  were 
in  your  day.  And  this  was  gradually  brought 
about,  the  cities  furnishing  at  first  so  much  water 
and  so  much  light  and  so  many  street  car  rides 
free  to  each  person,  and  at  last  taking  off  all  lim- 
its, only  making  the  citizen  responsible  for  un- 
reasonable waste.  Then  the  populace  demanded 
free  amusements  and  entertainments  and  these 
were  provided  in  the  form  of  the  concert,  lecture, 
theater,  circus  etc.  All  these  things  cost  money 
and  the  tax  rates  kept  getting  higher  and  higher. 
These  were  paid  in  the  form  of  rents  on  the  land, 
the  buildings  stood  on  and  of  course  at  once  trans- 
ferred to  the  rents  paid  by  tenants  for  rooms,  flats, 
shops,  stores  etc.  Rents  soon  became  higher  than 
they  had  ever  been  known  before  the  adoption  of 
the  single  tax.  To  lighten  these  rents  in  the  cities, 
it  was  now  proposed  to  increase  the  rents  of  lands 
in  the  country. 


Confiscation  of  Lands  93 


CHAPTER  VI. 
Confiscation  of  Lands. 

The  former  owners  of  these  lands  had  now  been 
practically  dispossessed.  Many  of  them  had  gone 
to  the  cities  and  engaged  in  more  profitable  busi- 
ness than  farming.  Many  who  were  mortgaged 
had  been  sold  out,  bankrupted  and  ruined,  and  had 
settled  down  into  the  condition  of  peasants.  The 
lands  were  now  regarded  as  the  property  of  the 
state.  This  process  of  the  transfer  of  the  lands  to 
the  state  went  further  in  Minnesota  than  the  other 
states,  because  she  was  the  first  to  adopt  the  new 
plan  of  taxation.  After  the  other  states  adopted 
it,  the  advantage  their  farmers  had  over  those  of 
Minnesota  was  lost.  Rents  under  the  name  of  taxes 
were  levied,  farming  rendered  unprofitable  and  the 
uncultivated  portions  of  the  land  abandoned  by 
their  owners.  The  few  southern  states  that  did  not 
go  into  this  new  plan  could  not  reap  much  ad- 
vantage from  their  position,  because  their  products 
were  different  from  those  of  the  northern  states 
and  could  not  replace  those  whose  cultivation  was 
repressed. 

Agricultural  products  fell  off  to  such  an  extent, 
that  in  a  few  years  the  United  States  ceased  to  be 
an  exporter  of  them.  The  cities  having  gained  con- 
trol of  the  states,  it  came  to  be  a  political  theory 


94  ^/i^   Lunarian   Professor 

that  each  state  was  a  community,  and  that  the 
lands  abandoned  or  forfeited  for  taxes  belonged  to 
the  Community  and  therefore  came  indirectly  un- 
der the  control  of  the  cities.  From  this  position 
it  was  an  easy  step  to  the  idea  that  the  taxes — or 
rents  as  they  were  designated — of  the  *' people's 
lands"  might  be  spent  where  most  beneficial  to 
the  majority,  that  is,  in  the  cities.  It  was  at- 
tempted to  be  pointed  out  by  the  more  conserva- 
tive that  this  was  class  legislation.  But  the  radi- 
cal progressives  replied  that  it  was  in  line  with 
the  theory  of  the  single  tax  which  was  class  legis- 
lation if  anything  could  be.  And  they  asserted 
that  the  adoption  of  the  single  tax  carried  with  it 
an  endorsement  of  the  principle  of  class  legislation 
when  demanded  by  the  interests  of  the  majority. 
Whether  their  reasoning  was  sound  or  not  they 
carried  the  day,  and  a  great  stride  was  taken  to- 
ward the  centralization  of  power  and  population. 
It  now  happened  that  when  more  money  was  want- 
ed it  was  raised,  not  by  increasing  the  rents  of  city 
lots,  but  those  of  farming  lands,  and  after  a  time 
the  principle  revenues  came  to  be  derived  from 
them.  Although  the  exportation  of  grain,  flour, 
beef  etc.,  had  practically  ceased,  still  the  people 
had  to  eat  and  their  food  had  to  be  raised  on  the 
land.  The  business  of  farming  gradually  took  on 
entirely  new  features.  Large  operators  took  large 
tracts  on  lease  from  the  state  at  prices  determined 
periodically  by  appraisment  fixed  in  proportion  to 
the  needs  of  the  state.  Lands  taken  on  these  terms 
were  guaranteed  to  be  kept  free  from  the  competi- 
tion of  squatters,  so  that  the.  lands  remaining  va- 


Confiscation  of  Lands  95 

cant  were  cleared  of  squatters,  or  else  the  latter 
were  restricted  to  a  mere  garden  patch.  Thus  the 
country  was  no  longer  occupied  by  farmers  resid- 
ing on  the  lands  with  their  families  as  in  former 
times.  The  agricultural  districts  were  inhabited 
only  by  a  poor  and  thriftless  class  of  peasants  and 
during  the  summers  by  the  employes  of  the  large 
contract  farmers  who  made  their  headquarters  and 
resided  with  their  families  in  the  cities.  In  the 
winter,  only  such  hands  as  were  required  to  care 
for  the  stock  remained  in  the  country,  the  rest  all 
flocking  to  the  towns. 

One    result    of    the    increased   rentals    charged 
for  the  agricultural  lands  appears  not  to  have  been 
anticipated.    That  was  the  great  rise  in  the  cost  of 
food.     Of  course  the  rents  of  the  lands  were  sim- 
ply added  to  the  cost  of  the  production  of  grain 
and  other  foods,  and  finally  v/ere  paid  by  the  con- 
sumer.    It  came  to  be  seen  after  a  time  that  the 
public  revenues  raised  out  of  the  agricultural  lands 
were  finally  paid  by  all  the  people  in  proportion- 
not  to  their  wealth  or  ability,  but  to  their  appe- 
tites and  the  amount  they  consumed — so  that  a  la- 
boring man  with  a  vigorious  appetite  paid  more  to 
support    the    state    than    a    dyspeptic    millionaire. 
And  a  poor  man's  family  of  six  or  eight  ravenous 
offspring  contributed  many  times  as  much  as  the 
scanty  and  sickly  progeny  of  the  exclusive  aristo- 
crat.   It  speedily  became  a  cause  of  great  dissatis- 
faction and  disappointment  when  the  poor  and  the 
working  classes  found  out  that  the  fine  promises 
of  the  single  tax  had  so  far  failed  that  instead  of 
lightening   their   burdens    it    had   increased   them. 


96  The  Lunarian  Professdr 

And  that  the  confiscation  of  the  lands  of  the  farm- 
ers instead  of  adding  to  the  prosperity  of  the  com- 
mon people  had  increased  the  already  plethoric, 
wealth  of  the  rich.  A  school  of  politicians  now 
arose  who  declared  that  the  taxation  of  land  was 
the  taxation  of  the  poor  man's  bread  and  butter 
and  was  all  wrong.  Instead  of  farming  land  pay- 
ing the  bulk  of  the  taxes  they  said  it  ought  not  to 
pay  any.  Every  facility  and  encouragement  ought 
to  be  given  for  the  production  of  cheap  food.  Peo- 
ple ought  not  to  be  taxed  on  what  they  consume, 
but  on  what  they  save.  Neither  labor  nor  the  la- 
borer should  be  taxed,  they  should  be  made  as 
free  and  unhampered  as  possible  for  the  produc- 
tion of  wealth.  But  when  wealth  was  once  pro- 
duced then  it  should  be  taxed  wherever  found  and 
a  necessary  portion  of  it  taken  as  the  revenue  of 
the  state.  The  laboring  classes  were  in  a  mood 
to  listen  to  this  logic  whether  sound  or  not.  The 
lands  having  passed  out  of  private  hands,  how- 
ever, there  was  no  disposition  to  allow  them  to  pass 
back  to  them  again.  And  the  new  party  advocated 
state  superintendence  of  the  lands  and  free  occu- 
pancy by  private  individuals  of  such  amounts  as 
each  could  actually  cultivate  to  advantage.  As 
the  population  and  demand  for  land  increased,  the 
amounts  allotted  to  individuals  was  to  be  cut  down 
proportionally,  and  a  grade  or  standard  of  cultiva- 
tion and  quantity  of  production  was  to  be  exact- 
ed, and  the  state  was  to  fix  the  prices  at  which 
the  products  were  to  be  sold.  Eventually  it  was 
proposed  that  the  state  should  be  the  purchaser 
and  distributor  of  these  products  so  that  specula- 


Confiscation  of  Lands  97 

tion  in  them  should  be  prevented.  The  advantage 
possessed  by  some  on  account  of  their  nearness  to 
market  would  be  equalized  by  the  state  paying  a 
less  rate  for  their  products  than  for  those  further 
away. 

Taxes  for  revenue  were  then  to  be  levied  upon 
every  piece  of  personal  property  that  could  be 
found  of  every  sort  whatever  including  buildings. 
In  the  cities  a  graded  rent  for  lots  was  to  be  assess- 
ed according  to  locality,  beginning  at  zero  in  the 
vacant  suburbs  and  increasing  toward  the  center 
of  greatest  activity  and  demand.  A  thoroughness 
in  assessment  and  the  employment  of  methods  that 
were  called  by  their  critics,  "odiously  inquisitor- 
ial," were  to  be  adopted,  but  the  fact  was  the 
mass  of  the  people  were  drifting  rapidly  toward 
socialism  in  their  ideas,  and  they  asserted  that  the 
*' inquisitorial  methods"  were  alright.  They  said, 
it  was  high  time  to  know  how  much  wealth  people 
had  and  how  they  came  by  it,  and  that  reluctance 
to  tell  on  the  part  of  the  possessors  of  it  indicated 
that  either  they  had  acquired  it  by  questionable 
methods,  or  wished  to  avoid  the  fair  responsibility, 
that  its  ownership  entailed.  They  went  further  and 
declared  it  was  high  time  that  more  scientific  pro- 
cesses were  discovered  and  put  into  practice  for 
the  equitable  distribution  of  wealth.  A  thousand 
men  contribute  to  the  production  of  $1,000,000  of 
wealth,  all  of  which  is  gobbled  up  in  a  few  weeks 
or  months  by  the  scheming  of  a  single  *' financier." 
The  board  of  directors  of  a  railroad,  a  mining  com- 
pany or  a  manufacturing  company,  may  issue  to 
themselves  certificates  of  watered  stock  for  which 


98  The  Lunarian  Professor 

they  pa}^  not  a  cent,  and  which  represent  wealth 
having  no  existence,  but  which  they  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  compel  the  public  to  make  good.  A  gang 
of  speculators  may  get  up  a  corner  on  wheat  or 
cotton  or  stocks  of  some  sort  and  artificially  raise 
the  price  while  they  unload  at  the  advanced  rate 
thereby  securing  wealth  they  never  earned.  Com- 
binations and  trusts  in  oil  or  sugar,  screws,  nails, 
coal,  whisky,  gas-pipes  or  binding  twine,  arbitrari- 
ly advance  the  price  of  the  articles  whenever  they 
want  more  money,  and  thus  take  as  many  thou- 
sands or  millions  from  that  patient  ass,  the  public, 
as  they  see  fit  without  a  pretense  of  returning  an 
equivalent.  All  these  things  the  politicians  of  the 
new  school  declared  must  be  stopped.  They  said 
people  should  not  be  allowed  to  secure  wealth  with- 
out in  some  way  earning  it,  and  if  they  had  manag- 
ed to  secure  it  without  rendering  an  equivalent 
for  it,  it  would  be  no  more  than  right  to  confiscate 
it  for  the  benefit  of  the  public  at  whose  expense 
it  must  have  been  acquired.  The  party  advocating 
these  ideas  rapidly  came  into  power  and  proceeded 
to  put  their  views  into  practice.  It  was  found  af- 
ter much  discussion  and  some  experimenting  that 
people  would  not  work  and  do  their  best  unless 
they  were  paid  better  for  their  best  than  for  their 
w^orst.  The  experiment  of  making  the  state  the 
buyer  and  wholesale  seller  of  all  articles  that  could 
be  made  the  subjects  of  combines  and  trusts  was 
found  to  work  well.  The  state  did  not  at  first  un- 
dertake to  manufacture  or  produce  anything,  but 
monopolized  its  transfer  from  producer  to  con- 
sumer.    For  example  the  producers  of  anthracite 


Confiscation  of  Lands  99 

coal  were  required  to  sell  their  product  to  the  gov- 
ernment, and  it  was  unlawful  for  them  to  sell  to 
anyone  else.  The  price  of  mining,  handling  and 
transportation  and  the  selling  rate  were  each  fixed 
by  a  board  of  arbitration  and  remained  fixed  till 
the  conditions  changed.  There  was  no  such  thing 
as  striking  among  the  hands,  for  if  they  were  dis- 
satisfied all  they  could  do  was  to  leave  and  allow 
others  to  take  their  places.  If  no  others  were  will- 
ing to  do  the  work  it  was  an  indication  that  the 
rate  was  too  low  and  the  board  of  arbitration  rais- 
ed it.  It  had  been  settled  before  this  that  the  mine 
owner  had  no  royalty  rights.  These  were  regard- 
ed as  the  property  of  the  state.  So  if  the  mine 
owners  attempted  to  combine  to  raise  the  price  to 
the  state  or  from  perverseness  refused  to  furnish 
the  amount  required  their  properties  were  placed 
by  the  state  in  the  hands  of  receivers  to  be  worked 
till  such  time  as  the  matters  in  dispute  were  regu- 
lated. 

Other  mining  industries,  and  the  production  o£ 
coal-oil,  sugar  and  other  articles  capable  of  con- 
trol by  trusts,  were  regulated  and  handled  in  simi- 
lar manner  by  the  state.  As  to  railroad,  telegraph 
and  express  properties,  they  all  passed  into  direct 
government  ownership  before  the  middle  of  the 
twentieth  century.'' 

The  Professor  pausing  here  for  a  moment  to 
shift  his  profile,  I  ventured  to  say  that  I  had  in 
my  day  anticipated  this  move  on  the  part  of  the 
government,  but  many  people  had  been  unable  to 
see  how  it  could  be  carried  into  effect  without  sim- 
ple confiscation,  because  they  said  it  would  bank- 


loo  The  Lunarian  Professor 

rupt  the  country  to  buy  the  roads  etc.,   and  pay 
their  value  for  them. 

''There  was  no  difficulty  at  all  in  the  matter," 
the  Professor  continued,  ''the  owners  of  the  roads 
received  for  them  all  they  were  worth,  and  yet 
they  did  not  cost  the  country  a  dollar.  First  the 
government  had  the  roads  appraised  on  a  capitaliz- 
ed basis,  in  which  account  was  taken  of  the  actual 
value  in  cash  of  the  property  as  it  stood  regard- 
less of  the  amount  of  stock  and  bonds  outstanding 
against  it.  Next,  account  was  taken  of  its  power 
to  earn  money. 

The  government  now  provided  for  the  issue  of 
consolidated  railway  bonds  guaranteed  by  the  gov- 
ernment. These  all  bore  the  same  rate  of  interest, 
three  per  cent  payable  annually.  They  were  in  five 
series,  due  in  20,  40,  60,  80  and  100  years  respec- 
tively, an  equal  amount  of  each.  They  were  in  de- 
nominations of  $20.00,  $50.00,  $100.00,  and  $1,000, 
with  coupons  for  the  interest  attached,  the  lower 
denominations  payable  at  the  earlier  dates. 

These  bonds  were  issued  in  exchange  for  the 
railway  securities  on  the  following  terms.  Bonds 
at  their  face  value  were  allotted  to  each  road  to 
the  amount  of  its  estimated  cash  value,  plus  its 
net  earnings  for  that  one  year  next  preceding  the 
passage  of  the  act  of  purchase.  Many  roads  earned 
only  enough  to  pay  their  running  expenses,  and 
these  received  only  the  amount  of  their  appraised 
valuation.  For  the  purpose  of  the  distribution  of 
the  allotment  of  the  purchase  bonds  to  the  holders 
of  the  railway  securities  in  any  given  ease,  ac- 
count was  taken  of  the  market  quotations  of  the 


Purcliasc  of  the  Railways  101 

several  sorts  of  stocks  and  bonds  at  a  date  one 
year  previous  to  the  act  of  purchase,  and  the  value 
of  each  person's  holding  thus  ascertained.  Then 
the  purchase  bonds  were  distributed  to  the  individ- 
uals pro  rata  to  these  values.  When  seven-tenths 
in  interest  of  the  proprietors  of  any  road  accepted 
the  terms  of  the  government  purchase  the  other 
three-tenths  were  obliged  to  accede  or  lose  their 
interests. 

A  few  roads  held  out  for  a  short  time,  but  af- 
ter the  ice  was  broken  they  all  at  once  became 
eager  to  transfer  their  properties  to  the  govern- 
met.  The  railway  consols  at  once  became  popular 
and  were  rated  above  par,  the  government  guaran- 
ty making  them  in  reality  national  bonds.  A  new 
cabinet  office — secretary  of  transportation — was 
created.  All  the  employes  on  the  roads  from  the 
superintendents  of  transportation  down,  held  their 
places  under  civil  service  rules,  and  this  branch  of 
the  administration  never  came  under  political  con- 
ditions, but  was  managed  upon  strictly  business 
principles  like  the  post  office.  The  income  from 
the  roads,  from  the  very  first  year  not  only  paid 
the  interest  on  the  railroad  consols,  but  yielded  a 
handsome  surplus  that  was  annually  laid  aside  in 
safe  investments  to  serve  as  a  sinking  fund  for 
the  redemption  and  cancellation  of  the  bonds  as 
they  should  mature.  Before  the  end  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  one-half  of  these  bonds  had  been  re- 
tired and  great  reductions  had  been  made  in  pas- 
senger and  freight  rates  and  the  service  had  vast- 
ly improved  over  what  it  was  in  your  day.  Strikes, 
freight  and  passenger  rate  wars  with  their  terrific 


102  The  Lunarian   Professor 

waste  and  demoralization  of  business  were  things 
of  the  long  past.  Many  other  leaks  of  railway 
earnings  were  stopped  when  the  roads  became  the 
property  of  the  government.  Many  small  pieces 
of  road  became  consolidated  under  one  superin- 
tendence; hordes  of  directors,  presidents,  vice  pres- 
idents, general  managers,  general  agents,  solicitors 
of  business  and  other  officials  were  dispensed  with ; 
many  of  whom  under  the  former  regime,  not  only 
drew  salaries  for  supposed  cervices,  but  absorbed 
besides  in  various  mysterious  ways,  vast  wealth 
that  of  right  should  have  gone  to  the  stockholders. 

The    total    mileage    of   the    railroads 

of  the  U.  S.  in  1893  was 173,370 

Total  capital  stock    $5,021,576,551 

Total  bonds 5,510,225,528 

Total  actual  cost  $15,000  per  mile..    7,801,650,000 

Total  earnings,  one  year   1,208,641,498 

Total  net  earnings    358,648,918 

Amount  of  the  railroad  consols  to  be 

issued  in  payment  of  the  R.  R..  .    8,160,300,000 

Annual    interest    on    same    at    three 

per  cent  244,809,000 

Surplus  of  railway  income  after  pay- 
ing interest  on  railroad  consols 
to  be  applied  to  sinking  fund. . .  .        113,839,918 

Amount  of  sinking  fund  after  twenty 
years  to  be  used  in  the  extinction 
of  one-fifth  of  the  consols 1,632,060,000 

Net  income  of  roads  increased  to 400,000,000 

Surplus  to  be  used  in  betterments.  . . .         41,351.082 


Purchase  of  the  Railways  103 

(The  above  figures  I  have  worked  out  to  accord 
with  the  Professor's  suggestions — as  he  did  not 
give  details.  I  have  put  the  average  value  of  the 
roads  at  $45,000  per  mile  which  is  much  more  than 
it  would  cost  to  replace  them.) 

"I  suppose,"  said  I,  ''that  these  bonds,  especial- 
ly those  of  the  lower  denominations  would  circu- 
late to  some  extent  as  currency." 

''They  did,  and  those  of  the  $1,000  denomina- 
tion were  used  as  the  basis  of  paper  currency.  But 
now  at  the  close  of  the  twentieth  century  over 
half  of  these  bonds  have  been  retired  and  the  cur- 
rency based  upon  them  withdrawn.  The  railroad, 
telegraph,  transportation,  express,  and  car  com- 
panies have  all  disappeared  and  the  entire  busi- 
ness is  conducted  by  the  general  government.  All 
of  the  roads  will  soon  have  been  entirely  paid  for 
and  the  rates  for  the  transportation  of  passengers, 
goods  and  messages  are  reduced  almost  to  actual 
cost  of  the  service  including  Avear  and  tear.  You 
would  doubtless  be  surprised  'hy  the  schedule  of 
prices.  For  example,  passenger  rates  for  ten  miles 
or  under  three  cents,  20  miles  five  cents,  50  miles 
ten  cents,  100  miles  fifteen  cents,  200  miles  25 
cents,  500  miles  50  cents  and  greater  distances  at 
the  same  rate  provided  it  is  a  continuous  ride  in 
the  same  train." 

"In  my  time,"  said  I,  "electricity  was  being  in- 
troduced as  the  motive  power  on  railways.  Did  it 
prove  successful?" 

"It  did,  eminently  so,  and  entirely  superseded 
steam  locomotion,  although  steam  stationary  en- 
gines  were  used  principally,  throughout  the   cen- 


104  The   Lunarian  Professor 

tury.  But  when  we  come  to  look  forward  into  the 
twenty-first  centmy,  we  shall  find  some  remarkable 
changes.     But  we  have  not  reached  that  yet. 

*'I  am  curious  to  know  how  the  currency  ques- 
tion was  settled.  After  the  retirement  of  the  rail- 
way consols,  I  suppose  they  fell  back  on  gold  or 
paper  based  on  it,  did  they?" 

*'The  use  of  gold  and  silver  money  was  never 
discontinued  entirely,  and  both  were  coined.  Near 
the  close  of  last  century,  the  free  coinage  of  silver 
was  strongly  demanded  by  the  people  and  strongly 
opposed  by  the  financiers.  Finall}^  they  compromis- 
ed. The  government  gave  up  the  task  of  main- 
taining the  parity  of  the  metals  at  any  ratio,  but 
coined  both. 

The  silver  "dollar"  with  its  fractions,  half 
quarter  and  dime  was  coined  in  quantities  to  ac- 
commodate the  business.  Silver  was  made  a  legal 
tender  for  limited  amounts.  This  gave  silver  the 
character  of  ''fiat  money,"  or  money  that  is  legal 
and  current  at  inflated  values.  They  made  gold 
the  standard  of  value.  In  this  they  were  right. 
There  could  logically  be  only  one  unit  of  value. 
But  the  debtor  class  strenuously  opposed  the  plan. 
They  said  it  w^orked  great  injustice  to  them,  be- 
cause their  debts  were  contracted  at  times  when 
money  bore  inflated  values ;  when  for  example  sil- 
ver was  intrinsically  worth  only  half  as  much  as 
gold.  These  debts  were  therefore  now  payable  in 
money  twice  as  valuable  and  twice  as  hard  to  get 
as  that  for  which  they  had  gone  into  debt.  In 
other  words  they  paid  back  twice  as  much  as  they 
fairly    owed    and    the    creditor    received    twice    as 


Regulation  of  the  Currency  105 

much  as  he  fairly  loaned.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
this  is  true  of  debts  of  long  standing.  But  most 
debts  were  not  affected  materially  by  the  rise  in 
the  value  of  gold,  because  they  were  not  contract- 
ed at  its  bottom  value,  but  at  various  grades  of 
value  while  it  was  on  the  ascending  movement. 
However  as  long  as  it  was  rising  the  creditor  class 
was  reaping  an  unjust  advantage  over  the  debtors. 
The  government  issued  bank  notes;  some  based  on 
silver  and  some  on  gold;  each  kind  redeemable  in 
the  metal  on  which  it  was  based.  The  quantity  of 
this  paper  money  was  regulated  by  the  national 
legislature  so  as  to  insure  a  circulation  in  propor- 
tion to  the  volume  of  business.  The  extended  use 
of  bank  checks  has  furnished  a  substitute  for  or 
supplement  to  the  currency.  When  the  currency 
question  was  finally  felt  to  be  settled,  the  condi- 
tions were  practically  accepted  and  the  producing 
class  was  set  to  work,  and  in  an  incredibly  short 
time,  replaced  the  wealth  that  had  been  abstracted 
from  them  and  more.  Then  came  an  era  of  specu- 
lation and  the  scattering  of  wealth.  Obligations 
rashly  incurred  in  flush  times,  had  to  be  met  when 
times  became  tight.  This  led  to  panics  and  the 
whole  routine  had  to  be  repeated  about  so  often. 
But  panics  could  not  be  entirely  eliminated  by 
doctoring  the  currency,  because  currency  is  not  the 
only  factor.  No  matter  how  much  currency  a  man 
has,  he  is  not  likely  to  buy  articles  he  does  not 
want.  If  mechanics  have  spent  their  time  in  tlip 
production  of  something  the  public  do  not  require 
or  a  surplus  of  what  they  do  ordinarily  require, 
there  will  be  difficulty  in  disposing  of  the  product. 


106  The  Lunarian  Professor 

If  two  classes  of  mechanics  each  make  things  with 
the  expectation  of  selling  them  to  the  other  class, 
and  they  turn  out  to  be  such  things  as  are  not 
wanted  in  either  case,  there  is  sure  to  be  stagna- 
tion of  exchange  and  consequent  suffering.  Where 
all  are  working  in  ignorance  of  the  requirements 
of  others  there  are  sure  to  be  produced  many 
things  for  which  there  will  be  no  demand.  This 
had  been  partially  recognized  by  the  government 
in  your  day  and  commissioners  were  appointed  to 
collect  statistics  and  make  estimates  in  regard  to 
the  production  of  and  probable  demand  for  cer- 
tain farm  products.  As  the  government  became 
more  intimately  the  servant  of  the  people  its  ser- 
vices in  this  direction  were  greatly  extended  and 
inquiries  covered  many  other  departments  beside 
that  of  farming.  The  government  itself  became  a 
large  consumer  in  operating  its  railroads,  tele- 
graphs etc.  Additional  mileage  had  to  be  con- 
structed to  meet  the  growing  business  besides  the 
renewals  on  account  of  wear  and  tear.  By  the 
publication  in  advance  of  the  probable  demands 
on  the  various  sorts  of  industry  it  became  possi- 
ble to  estimate  approximately  what  amount  of  and 
what  kind  of  product  could  be  disposed  of.  A 
still  more  fruitful  source  of  financial  trouble  was 
to  be  found  in  the  spirit  of  recklessness  and  extrav- 
agance with  which  people  spent  their  money  when 
times  were  prosperous  or  booming.  It  seemed  so 
easy  then  to  get  money  and  to  pay  debts  that 
many  thought  it  hardly  worth  while  to  do  it,  if 
there  appeared  a  chance  for  a  profitable  specula- 
tion, and  so  instead  of  paying  old  debts  they  were 


Socialism  107 

very  likely  to  incur  fresh  ones.  But  as  the  state 
became  more  and  more  involved  in  business  affairs, 
it  was  able  to  advise  what  products  would  be  in 
demand,  when  it  was  advisable  to  use  caution  and 
economy  and  when  activity  would  be  rewarded. 
The  functions  of  the  state  as  a  medium  of  exchange 
between  the  producer  and  the  consumer  became 
rapidly  extended,  and  before  the  close  of  the  cen- 
tury it  became  the  chief  and  in  many  things  the 
only  buyer  and  seller  of  the  products  in  most  com- 
mon use,  as  well  as  the  sole  factor  in  all  monopolies 
and  in  banking,  insurance,  and  public  amusements. 
It  had  not  yet  gone  into  manufacturing  or  farm- 
ing except  to  the  extent  necessary  to  prevent  com- 
binations  and  private  monopolies." 

*'I  think  I  can  see  the  advantage  of  this,"  said 
I,  **they  probably  held  to  the  principle  that  compe- 
tition is  necessary  to  keep  men  up  to  their  best  in 
exertion  and  industry." 

**That  is  correct,"  he  replied,  ''until  work  be- 
comes an  instinct  it  is  necessary  to  stimulate  exer- 
tion by  the  better  rewards  that  extra  industry  can 
procure.  The  socialists  in  your  day  proposed  no 
plan  that  calculated  sufficiently  upon  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  individual.  They  expected  that  every- 
body would  accept  the  position  assigned  to  him 
and  work  faithfully  for  the  good  of  all.  But  it 
was  too  soon  to  expect  this.  Your  race  is  very 
young.  It  is  not  so  long  since  your  ancestors 
ceased  to  depend  on  the  spontaneous  productions 
of  the  earth  for  their  sustenance,  and  began  to  sup- 
plement them  by  their  own  exertions.  With  some 
of  your  races  work  is  beginning  to  be  instinctive, 


108  Tlie   Lunarian   Professor 

but  there  are  yet  enough  in  every  nation,  who,  by 
their  hereditary  aversion  to  exertion  are  ready  to 
shirk  out  of  labor  and  make  the  burden  of  the  in- 
stinctively industrious  intolerable.  Your  race  is 
too  young  yet,  here  at  the  close  of  the  twentieth 
century,  to  take  on  the  purely  instinctive  social- 
istic conditions  as  we  Lunarians  have  them." 

''You  think  then  that  socialism  to  be  sucessful 
must  be  instinctive  as  it  is  with  the  bees?'* 

''To  be  permanently  sucessful  it  must  be  found- 
ed upon  such  an  instinct  for  industry,  that  makes 
it  more  agreeable  for  a  person  to  work,  than  to  be 
idle,  or  to  be  merely  amused.  That  is,  the  individual 
must  love  work  for  the  sake  of  the  work  rather 
than  for  the  reward  that  is  to  come  after  it.  It 
is  indeed  true  that  only  the  stimulation  of  the  re- 
w^ard  at  the  end  could  ever  have  created  or  kept 
up  the  habit  of  work  until  it  became  instinctive, 
and  it  is  true  that  if  this  reward  at  the  end  should 
habitually  cease  to  be  realized  to  at  least  some 
degree,  the  instinct  for  the  work  would  in  course 
of  time  become  undone — unwound  as  we  might  say. 
The  expectation  of  the  reward  if  it  is  as  constant 
as  the  work,  would  naturally  become  a  part  of  the 
instinct.  But  there  are  often  disappointments  as 
to  the  reward,  while  the  work  itself  remains  con- 
stant, so  that  this  part  of  the  instinct  learns  to  be 
satisfied  with  smaller  and  smaller  results  until 
finally  the  necessaries  of  painless  existence  in  which 
the  working  apparatus  is  kept  in  proper  operat- 
ing order  are  all  the  reward  that  the  instinct  re- 
quires." 

'*Then,"  said  I,  "in  this  supreme  ideal  of  social- 


Socialism  109 

istic  instinct,  I  understand  you,  that  the  individual 
lays  aside  all  expectation  of  personal  enjoyment, 
or  the  possession  of  anything  in  the  way  of  lux- 
uries or  superfluities.  It  seems  to  me  such  an  ex- 
istence must  be  a  very  narrow  one." 

*'The  possession  of  superfluities,"  said  he,  *'does 
not  contribute  at  all  to  enjoyment  of  life.  That  is 
why  they  are  superfluities.  A  luxury,  however,  is 
something  that  gives  or  is  supposed  to  give  unac- 
customed pleasure,  and  it  presupposes  conditions 
or  times  in  the  ordinary  life  of  the  individual  in 
which  he  fails  to  get  perfect  returns  of  happiness 
or  satisfaction.  But  suppose  there  are  no  such 
times  or  conditions,  and  that  he  has  no  possible 
desire  that  his  habitual  work  does  not  satisfy.  Then 
his  work  is  his  luxury  and  no  diversion  to  any  un- 
accustomed function  would  procure  so  great  a  lux- 
ury. As  to  such  existence  being  narrow,  it  all 
depends  on  the  breadth  of  the  work.  If  the  work 
is  circumscribed,  the  life  is  narrow.  If  the  work 
is  wide,  diversified  and  conplicated,  then  so  is 
the  life,  whether  it  be  accompanied  by  the  elements 
of  contingency  and  uncertainty  of  mind  as  with 
you  or  the  assurance  of  settled  and  triumphant 
success  as  with  us. 

All  the  same  however  true  socialistic  conditions 
are  not  realized  to  a  nearly  perfect  degree  up  to 
this  close  of  the  twentieth  century,  although  the 
advance  toward  them  has  been  what  the  conserva- 
tives of  your  day  would  have  regarded  as  alarm- 
ing. In  all  cases  where  honest  competition  in  the 
production  of  anything  can  be  maintained,  it  is  the 
policy  of  government  to  refrain  from  interference; 


110  The  Lunarian  Professor 

but  if  the  articles  produced  are  necessary  to  con- 
sumers or  are  required  as  materials  in  the  produc- 
tion of  other  goods  that  are,  and  the  manufacturers 
of  such  things  form  trusts  or  combinations  for  the 
purpose  of  increasing  the  price,  the  government  ap- 
points receivers  for  such  business  and  has  it  operat- 
ed long  enough  to  ascertain  the  cost  of  producing 
the  article.  The  price  is  then  fixed  by  the  govern- 
ment." 

*'But  what  if  the  parties  decline  to  sell  at  the 
prices  fixed  by  the  state?" 

**They  do  not  decline  unless  they  want  to  go  out 
of  business,"  he  replied,  "because  when  the  state 
interferes  in  such  cases  it  amounts  to  notice  to  the 
parties  that  the  state  is  ready,  as  an  alternative, 
to  undertake  the  business  itself,  when  it  speedily 
destroys  extortion  by  furnishing  the  required  pro- 
duct at  a  fair  price." 

*'It  would  seem  then,"  said  I,  *'that  the  state 
has  become  a  large  factor  in  the  business  of  the 
country,  and  there  has  been  a  great  centralization 
of  power." 

"That  is  true,"  he  answered,  "there  has  been 
a  remarkable  evolution  and  yet  a  perfectly  natural 
and  logical  one.  The  very  first  principle  on  which 
a  state  is  organized  is  the  defense  and  protection 
of  all — the  weaker  as  well  as  the  stronger  members — 
against  a  common  external  foe.  The  second  prin- 
ciple which  is  easily  derivable  from  the  first  is  the 
protection  of  the  members  of  the  society  from  each 
other.  Under  this  principle  the  weaker  will  be 
protected  from  the  stronger,  first  in  his  person, 
second  in  his  property.    It  was  the  theory  of  many 


Socialism  111 

in  all  former  times  that  the  functions  of  the  state 
ought  to  end  there.  Some  said,  that  to  go  any 
further  would  contravene  the  wholesome  natural 
law  of  selection,  and  interfere  against  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  Nature  left  to  herself,  would  put 
down  and  finally  exterminate  the  weakest  of  the 
race  mentally  and  physically,  leaving  always  the 
strongest  and  best  to  survive,  and  so  constantly 
improve  the  race.  But  if  that  consideration  were 
to  prevail  there  should  never  have  been  any  protec- 
tive organization  of  tribes  and  states  in  the  first 
place.  If  when  a  community  were  attacked  each 
individual  ran  away  or  hid  as  best  he  could,  the 
enemy  would  catch  and  destroy  the  less  swift  and 
Strang  and  the  less  shrewd  and  wary,  and  so  select 
the  best  for  survival.  But  under  the  organization, 
they  stand  together,  and  if  the  enemy  is  beaten 
off,  the  weak  and  inferior  members  are  saved  with 
the  best.  The  only  consideration  on  which  this  is 
right  must  be  that  the  weaker  members  of  the  so- 
ciety are  worth  more  to  the  state  than  they  cost, 
tnd  therefore  to  the  extent  that  they  are  protected 
by  the  organization  they  are  selected  by  nature 
in  this  roundabout  way  for  survival,  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  state. 

The  further  defense  of  the  weak  against  the 
strong  within  the  social  organization,  must  be  on 
the  same  principle.  And  this  principle  having 
been  admitted  there  is  no  logical  end  to  it  short 
of  protection  against  every  advantage  the  strong 
or  the  superior  or  the  more  wary  can  possibly  take 
or  attempt.  In  a  civilized  society  the  oppression 
of  the  weak  is  no  longer  so  much  from  personal 


112  The  Lxinarian  Professor 

violence  or  robbery,  but  it  takes  the  more  subtle 
form  of  absorbing  their  wealth  under  forms  of  law 
and  business  formulas,  so  that  in  such  a  society 
the  weak  and  unwary  are  valuable  to  produce 
wealth,  but  are  robbed  of  it,  practically  by  a  few. 

If  the  state  would  get  the  benefit  of  the  exer- 
tions of  its  members,  it  must  protect  them  from 
these  depredations,  whether  they  are  perpetrated 
under  the  forms  of  highway  robbery  or  of  the  laws 
of  trade.  In  short  the  protection  of  the  individual 
by  the  state  cannot  logically  terminate  till  it  pre- 
vents everyone  from  acquiring  property  he  has 
not  earned  and  rendered  a  fair  equivalent  for." 

''Then  ought  it  not  also  to  protect  society 
against  the  extortions  of  anyone  who  would  com- 
pel it  to  pay  too  much  for  something  he  alone 
could  produce?" 

''Of  course  that  is  included  in  the  first." 

"Well  then,  does  not  that  imply  also  that  the 
state  shall  insure  a  fair  return  for  the  work  of 
every  individual  to  himself?" 

"No,"  said  he,  "that  does  not  follow,  unless 
the  individual  performs  such  Avork  as  the  communi- 
ty wants.  If  a  man  is  free  to  do  as  he  likes,  and 
he  must  be,  he  may  sometimes  choose  to  do  some- 
thing of  no  use  to  anyone  else.  Then  of  course 
no  one  else  should  be  obliged  to  take  the  useless 
thing  and  pay  for  it.  But  if  a  man  has  nothing 
to  do,  the  state  should  upon  his  application  furnish 
him  employment  and  pay  him  for  his  work  when 
done  under  instructions." 


Women  s  Mights  113 


CHAPTER  VII. 
Women's  Rights. 

''I  suppose  there  has  been  a  change  in  the  posi- 
tion of  women  since  my  dayT' 

"In  politics  and  in  business,  there  is  now  no 
distinction  on  account  of  sex.  A  woman  may  be 
president  or  governor  of  a  state,  a  senator  or  judge. 
Women  are  to  be  found  in  every  department  of 
business,  and  are  fully  as  successful  as  the  men. 
This  materially  disturbed  the  organization  of  the 
family,  as  it  was  before  your  time.  The  man  was 
then  the  legal  and  often  the  actual  head  of  the 
family,  and  both  the  wife  and  the  children  were 
supposed  to  be  under  his  authority  within  certain 
limits.  But  as  the  sphere  of  woman  extended  and 
she  became  better  educated,  she  soon  passed  the 
condition  in  which  she  was  content  to  be  subor- 
dinate to  the  man.  She  insisted  upon  and  of  course 
secured  a  position  of  equality  as  to  legal  rights  and 
equal  authority  in  the  family.  In  your  day  the 
principal  occupation  of  women  was  in  domestic 
life,  keeping  the  house  and  rearing  the  children. 
As  women  became  interested  in  wider  activities, 
many  of  them  began  to  seek  ways  of  avoiding  fami- 
ly cares.  Co-operative  house-keeping  was  tried  in 
many  cases,  kindergartens  taking  charge  of  the 
children. 


114  The  Lunarian   Professor 

The  state  had  for  a  long  time  asserted  an  in- 
terest in  the  education  of  children,  first  providing 
the  means  of  education,  then  making  it  compulsory. 
Finding  that  some  Avere  kept  from  school  from  the 
inability  of  parents  to  provide  books,  the  state  pro- 
vided books  to  those  who  needed  them.  Then  be- 
cause the  pride  of  those  who  accepted  this  bounty, 
was  wounded  by  this  advertisement  of  their  pover- 
ty, it  became  necessary  for  the  state  to  furnish 
books  to  all  children,  both  of  the  rich  and  the  poor. 
Next  it  was  found  that  want  of  suitable  clothe?; 
kept  some  from  school  that  ought  to  attend,  and 
so  the  state  commenced  to  supply  school  clothes  to 
them  and  by  a  similar  process  of  evolution  finally 
came  to  supply  a  school  uniform  to  all  children.  It 
was  also  perceived  that  the  interest  of  the  state  in 
the  individual  did  not  end  when  it  had  taught  hiia 
the  three  R's  and  the  two  G's;  in  fact  it  had  only 
fairly  begun.  It  was  all  important  to  the  state  to 
know  whether  the  child  she  had  educated  was  go- 
ing to  employ  his  talents  for  good  or  for  ill.  It 
w^as  expected  he  would  carve  his  way  and  make 
his  living,  but  if  he  were  not  given  an  opportuni- 
ty to  learn  an  honest  vocation,  was  it  certain  that 
he  would  not  drift  into  a  dishonest  one?  It  w^as 
seen  to  be  the  duty  of  the  state  to  see  that  every 
youth  of  both  sexes  were  given  such  opportunity 
to  learn  some  trade  or  occupation.  This  became 
the  more  necessary  on  account  of  the  trades  unions 
and  combinations  amongst  working  men  who  nat- 
urally were  anxious  to  prevent  their  ranks  from 
being  crowded  and  jealously  threw  obstacles  in 
the  way  of  apprentices,  so  the  state  found  it  neces- 


Women's  Rights  llS 

sary  to  care  for  the  individual  until  he  had  attain- 
ed  the    equipment    essential   for   his   self   support. 

At  first  the  state  schools  of  trades  were  simp- 
ly free  to  all;  later  they  became  compulsory,  fol- 
lowing the  experience  of  the  common  schools. 
Scholars  in  the  common  school  were  educated  with 
reference  to  the  trade  they  fancied,  and  when  they 
entered  the  trade  school  they  were  on  trial  for  a 
limited  period  and  were  sorted  according  to  their 
ascertained  aptitudes.  It  became  a  necessary  branch 
of  the  supervision  of  the  state  to  ascertain  the 
proper  proportion  of  workmen  required  for  each 
branch  of  business  and  when  this  proportion  was 
being  seriously  disturbed  by  unequal  selection  by 
the  scholars  themselves,  it  was  restored  by  state 
selection  on  examination  according  to  aptitude. 

So  much  of  the  care  and  education  of  the  youth 
having  thus  been  assumed  by  the  state,  the  way 
was  opened  for  more.  It  was  said  that  half  the 
people  who  had  children  did  not  know  how  to  bring 
them  up  properly;  and  teachers  often  complained 
that  the  example  in  bad  manners,  deportment,  lan- 
guage etc.,  that  the  children  got  at  home  to  a 
great  extent  neutralized  the  good  lessons  in  these 
things  they  received  at  school. 

The  kindergartens  became  by  almost  insensible 
degrees  enlarged  in  the  scope  of  their  functions. 
At  first,  as  in  your  day,  they  were  merely  stopping 
places  for  the  children  during  the  day,  they  going 
back  to  their  parents  to  spend  the  night.  As  the 
mothers  came  to  be  more  and  more  engrossed  in 
affairs  avv^ay  from  home,  the  kindergartens  extend- 


116  The  Lunarian   Professor 

ed  their  care  over  the  children,  furnishing  them 
their  meals,  then  their  lodging,  then  medical  at- 
tendance as  well  as  education  and  amusement,  final- 
ly assuming  all  the  care  and  expense  of  maintain- 
ing and  rearing  them.  At  first  the  expense  was 
paid  by  the  parents,  but  was  gradually  assumed 
by  the  state  by  degrees  till  it  finally  became  re- 
sponsible for  all.  'The  advantage  of  these  public 
nurseries  was  at  first  of  course  most  marked  in 
favor  of  the  poorer  classes.  But  as  their  functions 
and  scope  developed,  the  care  and  training  of  the 
children  became  more  scientific,  their  powers,  tastes 
and  aptitudes  were  more  thoroughly  brought  out. 
The  wealthier  classes  at  first  objected  to  having 
their  children  reared  in  association  with  the  pie- 
bians.  But  the  children  of  plebians  w^ere  no  longer 
plebian  when  removed  permanently  from  the  in- 
fluences of  their  parent's  homes;  and  they  turned 
out  a  larger  percentage  of  successful  men  and 
women  than  those  of  more  comfortable  position.  In 
physical  and  mental  ability  they  were  superior,  and 
in  moralit}^  at  least  equal  to  the  others.  It  was 
seen  that  these  kindergartens  were  better  adapted 
for  the  care  of  children  than  even  the  better  equip- 
ped homes,  and  they  received  the  patronage  of  a 
constantly  increasing  proportion  of  the  people.  At 
first  there  was  nothing  compulsory  in  this  patron- 
age. Parents  left  their  children  when  it  suited 
them,  and  took  them  away  when  they  chose.  But 
after  a  time  this  was  outgrown.  It  came  gradual- 
ly to  be  understood  that  the  state — that  is  the 
whole  community — was  really  as  mucli  concerned 
in  the  destiny  of  the  growing  generation    as    the 


The  Family  11*^ 

parents;  and  it  was  said  that  it  was  better  that 
the  children  should  have  the  constant  care  and  at- 
tention of  those  intelligently  qualified  and  perfect- 
ly equipped,  than  that  their  development  should 
be  interrupted  when  the  caprice  of  parents  craved 
them  only  for  pets  and  playthings.  So  the  selfish- 
ness of  parents  in  this  respect  was  gradually  out- 
grown in  favor  of  the  more  important  welfare  of 
the  children.  But  economy  as  well  as  sentiment 
supported  this  evolution.  The  cost  of  caring  for 
the  children  by  the  state  was  vastly  less  than  un- 
der the  old  system,  and  it  no  longer  fell  with  such 
crushing  weight  on  those  least  able  to  bear  it;  for 
it  was  notorious  that  the  poor  were  the  most  proli- 
fic. With  the  better  care  they  received  the  mor- 
tality amongst  the  children  was  greatly  reduced 
and  a  far  greater  proportion  reached  maturity. 
Another  important  consideration  in  the  state  nur- 
sery system  was  the  cultivation  of  the  democratic 
sentiment  amongst  the  children,  and  the  destruc- 
tion oi  exclusiveness  and  aristocratic  ideas  and 
feelings. 

'^From  what  you  say,"  said  I,  ''it  appears  that 
the  state  has  undertaken  to  take  care  of  the  race 
during  their  age  of  helplessness,  from  infancy  to 
manhood." 

*-That  is  correct,"  he  answered,  ''the  state  takes 
the  child  as  soon  as  it  is  weaned,  sometimes  be- 
fore, and  keeps  and  provides  for  it  every  day  till 
it  is  prepared  to  be  selfsupporting.  Every  one  is 
taught  a  trade  or  a  profession  according  to  its 
bent  and  the  demand  for  services  in  the  several 
callings,  it  being  the  policy  of  the  state  to  so  reg- 


118  The  Lunarian  Professor 

ulate  these  things  that  the  value  of  services  is 
about  the  same  in  all  callings." 

*'Then  can  a  mechanic  make  as  much  as  a  doc- 
tor?" 

*' About  the  same.  As  soon  as  any  difference  is 
observed,  more  are  encouraged  to  enter  the  call- 
ing that  tends  to  the  higher  pay,  and  so  made  to 
preserve  the  uniformity." 

"Well,  if  the  state  begins  when  the  child  is 
weaned,  to  take  care  of  it,  w^hy  should  it  not  be- 
gin before — a  long  time  before  in  fact?  For  ante- 
natal influences  are  often  of  the  most  powerful 
kind ;  and  when  they  are  mischievous,  no  amount 
of  subsequent  education  is  able  to  neutralize  or 
rectify  them.  That  was  all  thought  out  in  my  day 
by  the  more  advanced  thinkers." 

*'0  they  have  **  maternity  hospitals"  and 
** Homes  for  Ladies"  and  all  that  sort  of  things — 
of  course — but  what  you  mean;  not  yet.  That  is 
still  in  the  future — but  we  shall  find  it  by  and  by 
in  a  way  that  will  surprise  you." 

*'Well  it  seems  to  me,  to  get  even  where  they 
are  they  must  have  met  and  solved  some  rather 
difficult  riddles,"  said  I.  "For  example  in  my  day 
there  was  a  desperate  struggle  between  Prostetants 
and  Catholics  in  regard  to  the  religious  education  of 
the  children.  The  Catholics  hated  the  public  schools, 
because  they  were  "godless."  They  insisted  on  hav- 
ing their  children  brought  up  in  their  own  faith. 
They  wanted  a  share  of  the  public  money  so  thej- 
could  have  schools  of  their  own  and  mix  their  cat- 
echism with  the  rules  of  grammar  and  the  rule  of 


Progress  in  the   Church  119 

three.    How  did  they  ever  settle  this  difficulty — or 
did  they  settle  it?" 

**0  yes,"  he  said,  **they  settled  it,  or  rather  it 
settled  itself.  At  first  the  Catholics  and  in  some 
places  the  Lutheran^  and  other  sects  of  Protestants 
insisted  on  maintaining  their  own  schools,  kindergar- 
tens etc.,  but  the  state  institutions  were  so  far 
superior  to  what  these  sectarians  could  furnish, 
that  the  laity  broke  av/ay  from  the  control  of 
their  priests  in  this  respect  and  followed  their  in- 
terests in  putting  their  children  under  the  care  of 
the  state.  As  however  the  state  monopolized  more 
and  more  of  the  pupils'  time,  it  was  conceded 
that  if  the  whole  population  was  not  to  become 
** godless,"  it  would  be  necessary  to  allow  religion 
to  be  taught  in  these  public  institutions  in  some 
form.  So  they  compromised.  The  different  reli- 
gious bodies  were  allowed  to  hold  Sunday  schools 
and  classes  for  religious  instruction  of  the  pupils 
in  the  creeds  professed  by  their  parents.  The  chil- 
dren were  also  taken  to  church  according  to  the 
same  rule.  This  was  at  first  made  compulsory  if 
desired  by  the  parents,  but  after  a  time  compul- 
sory attendance  upon  religious  instruction  was 
remitted  at  the  age  of  12  and  the  pupils  were  al- 
lowed to  choose  their  religion.  This  arrangement 
preserved  the  proportions  of  the  sects  to  each 
other  fairly  well,  but  in  the  meantime  there  arose 
conditions  that  made  this  preservation  of  small 
moment.  These  were  such  changes  in  the  spirit 
and  feeling  of  the  members  of  different  churches 
toward  each  other,  and  such  a  liberalizing  of  creeds 
that  all  were  brought  together  and  became  not  only 


1"^0  The  Lunarian  Professor 

tolerant,  but  even  cordial  toward  each  other.  The 
schools  themselves  did  more  than  anything  else  to 
bring  about  this  result,  for  as  the  older  scholars 
were  given  their  freedom  of  choice,  it  gradually 
became  a  fashion  or  fad  amongst  the  pupils  and 
finally  a  part  of  the  regular  curriculum  to  attend 
each  other's  meetings  and  interchange  ideas  and 
arguments.  As  the  ability  grew  amongst  all,  both 
the  young  and  old,  to  reason  more  justly  and  logic- 
ally, all  sides  became  less  tenacious  of  the  dog- 
mas they  found  themselves  unable  to  prove.  When 
these  were  lopped  off  from  the  various  conflicting 
creeds  their  professors  found  themselves  all  stand- 
ing on  practically  the  same  platform  of  facts  and 
plain  human  duties.  The  things  they  differed  on 
were  mostly  mere  h}T)otheses.  They  still  continued 
to  differ,  but  no  longer  regarded  their  differences 
of  such  vital  consequence  as  formerly.  It  came  to 
be  generally  admitted  as  absurd  that  the  future 
post  mortem  condition  of  men  should  depend  on 
their  intellectual  convictions  regarding  unprovable 
metaphysical  theories." 

*' Doubtless  the  bringing  together  of  the  chil- 
dren of  all  creeds  and  educating  them  in  each 
others  notions  had  much  to  do  with  this  liberaliz- 
ing process;  had  it  not?"    I  asked. 

**It  had  of  course,  but  the  education  of  the 
children  together,  was  itself  a  result  of  a  liberal- 
ized public  opinion.  The  fact  is  the  human  mind 
was  constantly  undergoing  a  process  of  expansion 
and  growth.  It  could  no  longer  be  satisfied  with 
the  crude  and  childish  notions  of  former  genera- 
tions, and  was  outgrowing  them  as   children  out- 


Progress    in   the   Church  121 

grow  the  fables  of  the  nursery.  Until  men  got 
capacity,  argument  and  logic  were  of  no  avail.  Ed- 
ucation in  the  great  facts  and  discoveries  of  science 
and  philosophy  gave  them  capacity/' 

**From  what  you  say,  I  should  suppose  there 
has  been  a  great  modification  of  creeds?*' 

''There  has  been.  No  church  remains  the  same 
either  in  theory  or  practice  that  it  was  in  your  day. 
Several  of  the  minor  protestant  sects  have  entirely 
disappeared. 

In  several  cases  two  or  three  have  united  to 
form  one.  The  whole  number  of  sects  is  less  than 
one-fourth  of  what  it  was.  Creeds  have  become 
extremely  simplified  and  in  many  cases  practi- 
cally ignored.  The  government  among  the  protest- 
ant sects,  is  in  most  cases  congregational  and 
democratic.  They  no  longer  engage  in  missionary 
work  for  the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  as  there 
are  no  longer  any  heathen  whose  conversion  is  de- 
sired ;  and  no  organized  effort  is  necessary  for  char- 
itable work  at  home,  because  that  is  amply  pro- 
vided for  by  the  state.  But  the  church  is  useful 
as  a  social  organization,  promoting  personal  friend- 
ships and  associations,  providing  intellectual  and 
educational  entertainment  for  its  members  foster- 
ing and  fortifying  the  moral  virtues  and  elevating 
and  refining  the  manners.  In  many  of  these  pro- 
testant congregations,  the  worship  of  God  by  pray- 
er and  ceremony  is  entirely  discontinued,  it  being 
held  that  all  worship  is  unworthy,  and  based  upon 
a  false  notion  of  the  relationship  between  God  and 
man.  Man  they  say  cannot  w^orship  or  serve  God 
directly.     God  is  not  childish  enough  to  wane  it. 


122  The  Lunarian  Professor 

All  man  can  do  is  to  help  his  fellow  man  and  him- 
self and  that  constitutes  his  whole  duty." 

"These,"  said  I,  ''would  probably  have  been 
called  free  thinkers  or  agnostics  in  my  day.  But 
what  of  the  Catholics?" 

''The  Catholics,"  he  replied,  "are  far  more 
numerous  than  the  Protestants.  Forty  years  ago 
there  was  a  great  schism  in  the  Catholic  church, 
the  American  branch  of  it  separating  completely 
from  the  European,  and  setting  up  for  itself  as  the 
"American  Catholic  Church."  At  the  same  time 
important  changes  were  made  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  church  and  radical  innova- 
tions in  its  government.  The  latter  is  now  largely 
republican  in  form  and  the  laity  have  representa- 
tion in  the  councils  of  the  church  and  a  prepond- 
erating influence  both  in  its  doctrine  and  its  tem- 
poral policy.  The  tendency  toward  this  develop- 
ment showed  itself  strongly  in  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  and  originated  from  the  gen- 
eral increase  of  intelligence  and  feeling  of  person- 
al assertion  and  responsibility  among  the  laity  and 
the  example  of  the  freer  people  about  them.  The 
clergy  instinctively  resisted  this  tendency,  and 
called  upon  the  Pope  and  the  European  church  to 
help  them  to  stop  it.  The  help  they  afforded  only 
stimulated  the  movement.  The  interference  of  the 
Europeans  was  resented  as  impertinent;  the  exer- 
cise of  the  papal  authority  was  looked  on  as  a  dis- 
play of  superannuated  tyranny.  The  Pope  asserted 
that  the  American  Church  by  its  liberal  practices 
and  tendencies  was  corrupting  the  church  in  other 
parts  of  the  world,  and  declared  they  were  doing 


progress  in   the   Church  123 

it  more  damage  as  members,  than  they  could  do  as 
open  enemies  outside  of  its  pale,  and  he  threatened 
to  excommunicate  the  whole  American  body.  The 
immediate  cause  of  the  final  act  of  separation  was 
first  the  persistence  of  the  laity  in  having  the  own- 
ership of  the  church  property  in  their  own  hands, 
represented  by  trustees  of  their  own  selection.  Sec- 
ond, their  demand  to  share  in  the  government  of 
the  church,  to  which  end  they  proposed  a  represen- 
tative legislature  composed  of  two  houses,  one  com- 
posed of  laymen  and  the  other  of  clergy. 

Third  they  asserted  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment without  prejudice  to  their  standing  as  Catho- 
lics, on  all  questions  of  mere  faith,  except  the  car- 
dinal principle  of  Christianity,  requiring  only  the 
observance  of  the  sacraments  and  the  practice  of 
charitable  works  and  a  moral  life. 

They  repudiated  auricular  confession.  These 
innovations  were  not  all  consumated  at  once,  but 
the  controversy  once  begun,  found  no  logical  settle- 
ment short  of  these  demands  and  the  rupture  of  the 
church.  Liberalized  in  this  way  in  regard  to  creed 
and  government,  and  freed  from  the  domination  of 
the  Italians,  but  retaining  much  of  the  ancient  rit- 
ual and  the  pomp  of  public  worship,  the  American 
Church,  became  very  popular,  and  soon  received 
large  accessions  of  membership  from  the  protestant 
bodies.  In  fact  the  more  conservative  and  spiritual 
protestants  found  the  new  catholic  church  more 
congenial  to  them  than  the  new  protestant.  The 
former  church  advanced  toward  them  as  the  latter 
drifted  away  into  rationalism. 


124  The  Lunarian  Professor 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
Marriage  and  Divorce. 

''You  said  that  the  occupations  of  women  be- 
came varied  and  ceased  to  be  domestic  in  a  major- 
ity of  cases;  what  effect  did  that  have  on  marriage 
and  divorce?"  I  enquired. 

"Various  causes  tended  to  make  marriage  al- 
most universal  and  celibacy  became  the  rare  ex- 
ception. The  chief  cause  was  the  assumption  by 
the  state  of  the  care  and  education  of  the  children. 
Another  was  the  ability  of  women  to  support  them- 
selves. Men  did  not  feel  it  such  a  burden  to  be 
married  when  they  did  not  have  to  greatly  exert 
themselves  for  the  support  of  either  wife  or  chil- 
dren. Women  did  not  feel  it  such  a  burden  when 
they  were  released  from  the  care  and  responsibility 
of  a  household  of  children  and  servants.  Marriage 
moreover  has  become  less  of  a  lottery  than  in  your 
day,  because  men  and  women  meet  each  other  in 
business  relations  in  which  they  act  their  natural 
selves.  Neither  is  obliged  to  marry  in  order  to 
live,,  and  less  art  and  deceit  are  used  for  the  pur- 
pose of  entrapping  a  partner.  The  property  of 
neither  man  nor  woman  is  affected  by  marriage, 
and  neither  acquires  any  rights  over  the  property 
of  the  other  except,  that  each  is  bound  to  care  and 
provide  for  the  other  in  case  of  sickness  or  disabil- 
ity.    There  are  fewer  conditions  that  are  liable  to 


Marriage  and  Divorce  125 

produce  inharmony,  because  greater  freedom  is 
conceded  to  the  parties,  and  there  are  fewer  points 
on  which  absolute  unanimity  is  essential.  ]\Iarriage 
is  on  the  whole  much  happier  than  formerly,  and 
although  divorces  are  easily  obtained  they  are  much 
less  frequent.  These  conditions  have  had  a  marked 
effect  on  the  increase  of  population  as  you  might 
suppose.  There  is  no  longer  any  temptation  to 
avoid  the  natural  results  of  marriage,  and  those 
unnatural  expedients  women  formerly  resorted  to 
for  that  purpose,  ruinous  to  health  and  morals,  are 
now  almost  unknown.  The  health  and  strength  of 
women  have  vastly  improved.  Women  dress  sen- 
sibly, and  live  natural  hygienic  lives,  and  the  ter- 
rors of  childbearing  have  practically  vanished.  As 
Americans  took  upon  themselves  the  furnishing  of 
native  born  citizens  to  people  this  country,  immi- 
gration from  Europe  fell  off  rapidly  and  practical- 
ly ceased  sixty  years  ago.  But  notwithstanding 
this,  the  population  has  more  than  doubled  three 
times,  and  for  the  territory  that  formed  the  United 
States  in  your  day  it  is  now  over  600,000,000," 

**Six  hundred  millions!"  I  repeated.  **AVhat  ai* 
enormous  number!  It  takes  my  breath  to  think 
of  it.  Is  it  possible  so  many  people  can  be  sup- 
ported in  that  territory?  Nearly  all  the  really 
valuable  land  seemed  to  be  taken  up  when  the 
population  was  but  70,000,000." 

**Aye,"  said  he,  **six  hundred  millions  are  easi- 
ly supported,  and  supported  in  greater  comfort  than 
when  the  population  was  but  70,000,000;  and  they 
may  even  double  several  times  more  before  the 
capacity  of  the  country  is  exhausted." 


126  The  Lunarian   Professor 

"I  am  amazed  at  what  you  say,"  said  I,  ''but 
there  must  be  a  limit.  Let  me  see,  if  600,000,000 
are- doubled  three  times  it  will  amount  to  4,800,- 
000,000.  Is  it  possible  the- land  could  produce  food 
and  clothing  for  so  many;  and  yet  from  what  you 
say  about  the  rate  of  increase  that  enormous  num- 
ber of  people  will  be  in  this  country  before  the  end 
of  the  tw^enty-first  century.'' 

*'\Ye  will  not  cross  that  bridge  till  w^e  come  to 
it,"  he  answered,  "we  will  explain  that  when  w^e 
come  to  look  forward  into  the  twenty-first  century. 
It  is  true  we  shall  find  a  limit.  The  breeding  in- 
stinct of  any  race  of  animals,  not  excepting 
man,  would  if  unchecked  and  unopposed  in  the 
course  of  time  absolutely  fill  up  the  earth 
till  it  could  support  no  more.  Man  has  for  many 
ages  been  the  dominant  animal  of  the  earth.  Yet 
he  has  failed  to  stock  the  world  to  its  capacity 
or  anywhere  near  it  for  reasons  you  can  easily 
supply  yourself.  In  the  first  place  the  profession 
of  arms  or  the  art  of  keeping  down  the  popula- 
tion by  war  has  always  held  the  most  honorable 
rank  among  human  employments;  second  the  hu- 
man race  has  been  the  absolutely  helpless  victim 
of  pestilence  and  plague.  Hundreds  of  different 
kinds  of  microbes,  vibrios,  bacteria  and  zymases 
have  from  age  to  age  apparently  whenever  they 
saw  fit,  or  thought  men  were  getting  too  numer- 
ous, unseen  and  unsuspected,  planted  their  colonies 
in  their  vital  organs,  and  swarmed  in  their  blood, 
living  at  their  expense  and  sweeping  them  to  death 
by  myriads  and  millions.  Next,  men  w^ere  at  the 
mercy  of  the  elements  both  on  sea  and  land.  AVhen- 


Geographical  Changes  127 

ever  a  crop  failed  from  drought  or  Hood  there 
followed  a  famine,  and  millions  were  periodically 
swept  away  by  gaunt  starvation,  because  there  was 
no  way  of  conveying  to  a  needy  district,  the  super- 
abundance that  might  exist  in  another.  But  even 
where  all  nature  was  favorable,  and  nations  hap- 
pened to  be  at  peace  there  v/as  always  the  native 
and  hereditary  stupidity  of  the  individual  that 
blinded  him  to  all  rational  ways  of  taking  care  of 
himself  or  his  dependents  and  made  it  impossible 
for  him  to  rear  to  maturity  more  than  one  out  of 
five  of  his  children.  Thus  many  causes  conspired 
to  kill  people  off  almost  as  fast  as  they  were  born 
and  sometimes  faster,  and  many  times  to  prevent 
them  from  being  born  when  they  ought  to  have 
been.  These  inimical  causes  have  all  practically 
been  eliminated.  The  destructive  agencies  supplied 
by  nature  for  limiting  the  increase  of  the  popula- 
tion having  been  set  at  defiance  by  art,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  art  must  likewise  find  a  v/ay  for  limit- 
ing the  increase  of  population,  or  else  sometime  in 
the  future  that  increase  will  by  its  very  success 
put  a  stop  to  itself,  and  the  brutal  methods  of  un- 
tamed nature  again  assert  themselves.  After  all, 
art  is  only  a  subdivision  of  nature.  It  may  modi- 
fy the  action  of  nature  as  to  details,  but  cannot 
set   aside  the  principles  that   govern  it." 

''You  spoke  a  little  while  ago  of  the  territory 
of  the  United  States,  as  it  was  in  my  day.  This 
V70uld  appear  to  intimate  that  the  boundaries  have 
changed  since  then,  is  that  so?" 

''Well  yes,  you  will  think  so,  when  you  know 
that  the  United  States  of  the  present  day  covers 


i28  The  Luniarian   Profcssoi' 

the  entire  Continent  of  North  America,  and  em- 
braces besides,  New  Zealand,  Australia,  the  Eng- 
lish Colonies  in  South  Africa,  Ireland,  Cuba  and 
most  of  the  AVest  India  Islands,  and  numerous 
islands  in  the  Pacific  ocean.  I  see  this  astonishes 
you  and  I  will  proceed  to  tell  you  how  it  happen- 
ed. If  we  begin  at  the  beginning,  it  appears  to 
have  been  very  largely  due  to  the  construction  of 
railroads  in  Asia  by  the  Russians;  that  is  it,  would 
never  have  happened  if  these  roads  had  not  been 
built.  The  great  transcontinental  Siberian  road 
was  completed  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Vladivo- 
stock  on  the  Pacific  ocean  in  1904  and  formally 
opened  with  a  great  flourish  by  the  Rsusian  em- 
peror. The  Russians  were  not  entirely  satisfied 
however  with  this  road.  It  was  essential  as  a  mil- 
itary road,  and  as  a  means  of  settling  a  vast  ex- 
tent of  fertile  country  in  Siberia,  but  as  a  com- 
mercial line  it  did  not  meet  their  rather  sanguine 
expectations. 

Their  ambition  was  to  monopolize  the  trade  be- 
tween China  and  Europe.  The  new  road  by  going 
around  the  east  side  of  Mantchooria  instead  ot 
through  it  to  Pekin,  imposed  on  that  trade  an  un- 
neccessary  transportation  of  1800  miles.  They 
saw  directly  that  they  needed  a  line  to  Pekin 
and  Teentsin,  from  Irkutsk.  They  obtained  a  con- 
cession from  the  Chinese  government  and  built 
this  line  for  commercial  purposes.  Then,  later, 
they  found  it  desirable  to  build  another  line  west 
of  the  first  and  reaching  the  ocean  at  Shanghai. 
They  also  tapped  the  western  part  of  the  Chinese 
empire  by  a  line  from  Bokara. 


Geographical  Changes  129 

From  these  lines  others  soon  grew,  command- 
ing the  business  of  the  country  and  mostly  owned 
by  the  Russians.  In  no  long  time  jealousy  of  the 
enterprising  "foreign  devils"  on  the  part  of  some 
of  the  more  conservative  and  reactionary  of  the 
Chinese,  led  to  outrages  on  their  part  which  furn- 
ished a  good  pretext  for  military  occupation  of 
the  country  and  finally  to  its  conquest  and  annexa- 
tion by  the  Russians.  These  encroachments  of  the 
Russians  had  been  bitterly,  but  ineffectually  op- 
posed by  the  English.  Their  opposition  provoked 
the  Russians  to  place  England  on  the  defensive 
with  regard  to  her  Indian  possessions  so  they 
pushed  their  railway  line  through  Tartary  to  the 
very  borders  of  northwestern  India  and  threaten- 
ed it  with  a  large  army  of  invasion.  The  Hindoos 
who  had  for  years  been  waiting  for  such  an  op- 
portunity to  throw  off  the  British  yoke  now  re- 
volted. They  had  been  taught  the  art  of  war  by 
their  masters  and  now  practiced  it  upon  them, 
turning  upon  their  teachers  the  weapons  they  had 
put  into  their  hands  and  taught  them  to  use.  The 
very  soldiers  that  were  counted  on  to  repel  the 
Russians  took  their  side  against  the  English.  Be- 
tween the  Russians  and  the  Indians  the  British 
power  in  India  was  totally  crushed,  and  several 
independent  kingdoms  were  set  up  under  Russian 
protection.  France  also  assisted  Russia  in  this 
war,  especially  on  the  ocean.  British  commerce 
was  almost  destroyed  by  Russian  and  French 
cruisers.  After  the  war  was  over  these  two  na- 
tions almost  monopolized  the  Indian  trade  under 
discriminating  commerce  regulations,  the  Russians 


130  The  Lunarian  Professor 

by  land  carriag:e  over  their  railway  and  the  French 
by  sea.  In  the  end  the  Eussians  became  masters 
of  almost  the  whole  of  Asia.  Turkey  was  dis- 
membered, the  city  of  Constantinople  and  all 
Asiatic  Turkey  falling"  to  the  Russians." 

**  Professor,  in  my  day  there  was  a  great  war 
between  Russia  and  Japan,  which  you  have  not 
mentioned.  "Was  it  not  a  factor  in  the  settlement 
of  the  Asiatic  questions?" 

**No,  it  did  not  assist  in  making  a  settlement, 
for  none  was  made,  its  only  effect  was  to  postpone 
a  settlement.  The  events  I  have  narrated  were 
greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  United  States. 
The  destruction  of  England's  commerce  largely  in- 
volved her  manufacturers  also,  and  in  like  degree 
made  room  for  and  stimulated  those  of  the  United 
States.  Her  trade  with  all  the  British  Colonies 
soon  eclisped  that  of  the  mother  country  herself. 
As  the  tremendous  natural  resources  of  the  United 
States  became  more  and  more  developed  under  the 
energy  and  skill  of  the  most  enlightened  methods, 
the  contrast  between  America  and  England  en- 
forced itself  on  the  attention  of  all. 

Treaties  looking  to  the  abolition  of  war,  and 
the  settlement  of  all  international  questions  by 
arbitration  had  already  been  adopted  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  and  her  Col- 
onies, and  there  had  been  a  strong  feeling  and 
agitation  for  a  closer  political  union  of  all  the  Eng- 
lish speaking  people.  The  aggressive  foreign  poli- 
cy of  England  stood  in  the  way  of  this.  But  to 
her,  this  aggressive  policy  appeared  essential.  She 
had   held   India,   Birmah   and    large    territories    in 


Geographical  Changes  131 

Africa,  by  conquest,  and  her  trade  to  these  coun- 
tries depended  on  her  continued  military  control 
over  them. 

After  the  war  with  Eussia  and  France  in  which 
she  lost  India,  her  commerce,  and  her  prestige, 
England  still  felt  her  only  chance  for  retaining  her 
importance  as  an  influential  factor  in  the  politics 
of  the  world,  to  be  in  cultivating  her  interests  in 
Birmah  and  Africa.  She  could  colonize  neither 
of  these  countries  to  any  great  extent.  All  she 
could  do  was  to  conquer  and  rule  them  and  com- 
pel them  to  trade  with  her  on  terms  that  turned 
all  their  surplus  wealth  into  her  coffers — as  she 
had  done  in  India.  Her  misfortunes  had  soured 
her  temper  and  made  her  more  truculent  and  bull- 
dozing than  ever.  Her  manner  towards  her  colo- 
nies changed.  They  had  been  of  little  or  no  as- 
sistance to  her  in  her  struggle  with  Russia,  and 
had  but  little  sympathy  with  her  foreign  policy 
and  the  truculent  and  aggressive  bearing  towards 
weaker  nations  that  had  made  her  to  be  thorough- 
ly unpopular  in  some  parts  of  the  world.  England 
now  began  to  resent  the  cold  attitude  of  the  colo- 
nies toward  her,  and  to  talk  of  the  duty  of  the 
daughters  towards  the  mother.  She  began  to  be 
sorely  pinched  for  money.  The  war  had  doubled 
her  already  enormous  debt,  and  halved  her  re- 
sources. The  number  of  her  unemployed  at  home 
had  greatly  increased  by  reason  of  the  diminution 
of  her  trade  and  the  foreign  demand  for  her  manu- 
facturers. Taxation  enormously  increased  and  th'i 
rich  were  reduced  to  poverty  in  providing  for  the 
poor.     Millions   emigrated  to  America  and  to  the 


133  The  Lunarian  Professor 

colonies,  g:cnerally  people  of  the  thrifty  and  pro- 
ductive classes,  thereby  reducing  the  resources  of 
the  country  without  diminishing  her  liabilities. 
She  now  proposed  to  the  colonies  to  tax  themselves 
for  her  benefit.  This  they  were  not  inclined  to  do. 
They  were  all  comparatively  poor.  They  needed 
all  the  money  they  could  raise  for  public  improve- 
ments in  their  own  settlements.  Most  of  them  were 
heavily  in  debt.  Canada  was  hopelessly  so,  practi- 
cally bankrupt  in  fact.  Finally  the  colonies  all 
declined  to  be  taxed  for  the  benefit  of  the  mother 
country.  The  condition  of  affairs  in  the  British 
empire  gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  idea  of  con- 
federation with  the  United  States.  The  plan  gain- 
ed favor  rapidly  with  the  colonies.  No  nation  on 
earth  was  so  prosperous  then,  or  possessed  of  such 
vast  resources  as  the  United  States.  The  country 
was  out  of  debt  and  enormously  wealthy. 

Her  army  was  small,  but  she  had  a  powerful 
navy.  She  was  respected  by  all  the  world  and  had 
great  influence,  as  much  from  her  fairness  and 
justice  to  other  nations  as  from  her  known  re- 
served power  and  ability  to  enforce  justice  to  her- 
self. The  British  felt  the  need  of  an  alliance  that 
would  place  them  in  the  front  rank  of  nations 
again,  and  all  the  branches  of  the  empire  appeared 
anxious  for  the  consolidation  with  the  United 
States.  This  country  was  desirous  of  obtaining 
Canada,  and  this  made  it  the  more  ready  to  adopt 
the  union,  because  it  was  supposed  it  must  be  witli 
all  or  none.  As  this  country  was  by  far  the  most 
populous  number  of  the  proposed  union,  it  was 
conceded   that   Washington   should   be   the   capital 


Geographical  Changes 


133 


of  the  new  empire.     The  constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  taken  as  the  basis  of  the  new  govern- 
ment  with    certain    modifications.      The    President 
and  Vice  President  were  to  be  elected  by  direct 
vote  of  the  people,  a  plurality  to  elect.    They  were 
to  serve  six  years  only.     They  could  not  both  be 
from  the  same  continent  or  state.     The  President 
was  not  to  have  the  veto  power.     The  Representa- 
tives were  to  be  600  in  number  apportioned  among 
the    states    according    to    population.      The    senate 
was  to  consist  of  100  members  elected  by  the  peo- 
ple.    The  term   of  office  for  both  houses  was  to 
be   two    years.      Each   natural   division   as    a    con- 
tinent or  island  or  group  of  islands  was  to  be  divid- 
ed into   senatorial   districts   following   state   boun- 
daries   when    practicable,    but    throwing    together 
small  states  or  fractions  of  large  ones  when  neces- 
sary to  give  the  proper  quota  of  population.     All 
bills  were  to  originate  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, but  w^ere  also  to  pass  the  senate  before  be- 
coming  laws;   but   that   body   could   not    alter    or 
amend— only  veto  or  approve,  and  the  House  could 
pass  any  bill  in  spite  of  the  senate  by  a  two  thirds 
vote.     The   President   was   to   appoint   his   cabinet 
with  the   approval   of  the  senate,  but  all  or  any 
one  was  to  be  required  to  resign  upon  a  vote  of 
^Svant  of  confidence"  by  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives.     Both   the    President     and    Vice    President 
could  be  removed  from  office  by  a  two-thirds  vote 
of  both  House  and  senate  and  a  new  election  or- 
dered to  fill  the  unexpired  term. 

There   was   to    be    free   trade    amongst   all    the 
states    under    this    constitution    and    also    between 


134  The  Lunarian  Professor 

these  states  and  foreign  nations  except  that  a 
tariff  on  importations  might  be  imposed  when  or- 
dered by  a  three-fourths  vote  of  the  Congress.  The 
general  revenue  was  to  be  collected  by  the  Coun- 
ty Commissioners  and  Treasurers  of  the  counties 
of  the  several  states,  such  officers  being  for  such 
purpose,  officers  of  the  general  government,  and 
levying  such  rate  of  tax  as  ordered  by  the  law  of 
Congress  in  addition  to  the  taxes  ordered  by  htc 
state,  county,  city,  ward,  or  school  district  authori- 
ties. 

Suffrage  was  to  be  restricted  to  men  and 
women  who  could  read  and  write  the  English 
language.  Foreign  immigrants  were  not  to  be 
permitted  to  settle  in  colonies  in  any  of  the  states 
or  to  maintain  public  schools — except  high  schools 
— in  which  any  other  than  the  English  language  is 
used. 

No  state  could  engage  in  aggressive  foreign 
Avar,  but  might  repel  invasion.  Only  the  general 
government  could  engage  in  war. 

This  scheme  of  government  was  prepared  by  a 
joint  commission  appointed  for  the  purpose,  and 
submitted  to  the  people  of  the  several  countries  in- 
terested, the  British  Colonies,  each  separately,  Eng- 
land, Ireland,  the  United  States  and  Scotland.  All 
the  colonies,  the  United  States  and  Ireland  voted 
for  the  plan;  England  and  Scotland  voted  against 
it.  They  were  dissatisfied  with  the  provision  pro- 
hibiting them  from  going  to  war.  They  had  al- 
ways enjoyed  this  luxury  and  were  loth  to  be  de- 
prived of  it.  They  had  hoped  tlie  plan  of  union 
would  allow  them  to  pursue  their  schemes  of  set- 


Geographical  Changes 


I6d 


tlement  and  annexation  as  before  with  the  right 
to  call  on  the  confederation  for  succor  in  case  they 
were  hard  pressed  by  foreign  enemies.  They  argu- 
ed indeed  that  actual  active  assistance  would  never 
in  any  probable  event  be  required,  because  with 
the  mere  moral  support  of  such  formidable  back- 
ing they  felt  sure  that  almost  any  nation  would 
put  up  with  any  amount  of  insult  and  injury  rath- 
er than  resent  it  against  such  odds. 

It  was  supposed  by  many  that  the  failure  of 
Great  Britain  to  ratify  the  general  constitution 
would  defeat  the  whole  scheme.  But  the  colonies 
and  Ireland  had  become  very  much  in  favor  of  it, 
and  hated  to  be  balked  by  what  they  termed  the 
selfish  action  of  the  mother  country;  and  they  de- 
manded her  consent  to  the  union,  of  as  many  as 
might  choose  to  join  it  without  her.  She  was  in 
no  condition  to  resist  their  demands  if  they  should 
choose  to  enforce  them.  But  it  would  have  been 
folly  to  have  come  to  blows  or  even  to  words  over 
such  a  question.  The  colonies  had  never  been  a 
source  of  profit  to  England,  but  rather  a  bill  of 
expense.  She  traded  with  them,  but  did  not  pos- 
sess a  monopoly  of  their  trade,  and  paid  their 
tariff  dues  the  same  as  other  people.  The  United 
States  enjoyed  a  larger  trade  with  Canada  than 
she,  and  had  almost  driven  her  out  of  the  trade 
with  several  of  her  own  West  India  Islands.  What- 
ever the  position  might  be  that  she  held  with  refer- 
ence to  this  commerce,  it  would  not  be  made  worse 
by  this  proposed  union,  but  rather  better,  for  free 
trade  would  take  the  place  of  tariffs.  She  would 
also  enjoy  free  trade  with  the  United  States,  which 


136  The  Lunarian  Professor 

alone  was  worth  to  her  a  dozen  colonies.  The 
union  of  England  with  her  colonies  was  chiefly 
one  of  sentiment.  They  governed  themselves  ac- 
cording to  their  own  ideas,  and  w^ere  practically 
so  many  independent  nations,  which  she  was  in 
sentiment  bound  to  protect  when  they  got  into 
trouble,  but  which  had  little  or  nothing  to  give 
her  in  return  for  her  maternal  solicitude  and  wor- 
ry. Their  relationship  to  her  tended  to  make  them 
impertinent  and  presumptuous  in  their  intercourse 
with  other  nations.  Canada  in  particular  by  her 
bumptiousness  had  more  than  once  come  very  near- 
ly involving  her  in  ruinous  war  with  the  United 
States,  in  which  her  loss  would  have  been  the  des- 
truction of  her  commence,  and  her  only  gain,  the 
loss  of  her  pert  colony.  All  these  points  were  dis- 
cussed by  the  English.  It  was  urged  that  if  Brit- 
ain tried  to  keep  the  Colonies  against  their  will, 
the  time  would  surely  come  when  she  w^ould  have 
to  give  them  up  against  hers.  They  recalled  the 
Controversy  with  the  United  States  and  reflected 
how  much  better  it  would  have  been  for  England 
if  she  had  permitted  them  to  go  off  as  friends 
rather  than  enemies.  And  they  averred  that  if  she 
should  give  her  cordial  approbation  to  the  new 
union  and  send  off  the  colonies  with  the  maternal 
blessing  to  join  their  big  brother  Jonathan,  it 
would  go  far  toward  curing  the  unfilial,  but  not 
entirely  causeless  feeling  of  bitterness  he  had  en- 
tertained for  her  since  1776  and  1812. 

As  a  result  of  all  these  reflections  and  many 
more  of  the  same  sort,  the  conclusion  was  finally 
reached  and  the  parliament  gave  its  solemn  sane- 


Geographical  Changes  137 

tion  to  the  new  State,  but  with  characteristic  fore- 
sight exacted  one  promise  to  which  all  the  states 
acceded  before  the  final  act  was  consummated,  and 
that  was,  that  the  said  new  nation  should  forever 
be  the  friend  of  Great  Britain  and  in  case  her 
existence  as  a  nation  were  threatened  it  should 
be  bound  to  interpose  in  her  behalf,  and  if  neces- 
sary take  up  arms  in  her  defense.  The  name  pro- 
posed for  the  new  nation  was  the  *'Pan  Anglic 
Union."  When  England  failed  to  ratify,  *'Pan" 
was  dropped,  and  the  name  became  simply  the 
*' Anglic  Union."  But  it  was  playfully  nicknamed 
the  "Lion's  Cubs,"  the  ''Old  Hen's  Chickens"  etc. 

'^When  did  these  things  happen,"  I  inquired. 

**They  were  finished  by  the  year  1950,"  he  re- 
plied. 

*'Did  not  the  various  states  have  to  do  con- 
siderable remodeling  of  their  forms  and  precedure 
to  fit  them  for  this  consolidation?'* 

*'Very  little,  their  governments  were  all  much 
like  that  of  the  United  States.  Like  this  country, 
they  had  already  turned  over  to  the  control  of  the 
state  all  monopolies,  such  as  railroads,  and  had 
reached  the  same  conclusions  as  to  money,  the 
suffrage,  taxation  and  most  other  questions.  They 
had  their  legislatures  and  executive  and  judicial 
branches  of  government,  all  about  alike.  Ireland 
had  for  a  decade  or  more  enjoyed  home  rule.  She 
came  into  the  new  Union  as  two  states,  Ulster  and 
South  Ireland.  These  were  soon  afterward  recon- 
solidated  into  one — Ireland — the  causes  that  led  to 
their  separation,  viz,  religious  jealousy  and  the 
teaching   of   religion   in   the   schools    having   been 


138  The  Lunarian  Professor 

eliminated  by  the  severance  of  all  connection  be- 
tween church  and  state,  which  the  new  constitution 
required. 

The  new  nation  had  hardly  got  settled  down  to 
business,  before  new  annexations  and  consolida- 
tions were  proposed  and  after  much  hesitation  and 
reflection  were  agreed  to.  Mexico,  Central  Amer- 
ica and  Japan  proposed  to  come  into  the  Union, 
and  shortly  after  Chili  and  Argentine  made  appli- 
cation for  admission.  The  fact  is  that  in  forming 
the  "Anglic  Union"  the  promoters  were  building 
far  more  than  they  realized.  Time  had  without 
their  knowing  it  reached  a  new  epoch,  and  was 
about  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf.  ]\Ien  were  becom- 
ing educated  and  mentally  developed  by  strides 
instead  of  inches,  by  moles  instead  of  molecules. 
In  forming  the  "Anglic  Union"  they  had  given 
expression  to  a  new  feeling  into  which  mankind 
was  just  being  born,  a  feeling  of  human  brother- 
hood, a  new  instinct  that  drew^  men  together  and 
acquainted  them  with  the  fact  that  they  were  all 
the  result  of  common  natural  causes  and  animat- 
ed by  common  loves  and  hopes  and 'fears.  It  show- 
ed them  they  were  not  naturally  and  necessarily 
enemies,  but  might  and  ought  to  be  friends  and 
mutually  helpful  to  each  other.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end  of  war,  the  epoch  of  peace  and 
good  will. 

When  they  began  to  think  of  taking  other  than 
English  speaking  nations  into  the  "Anglic  Union," 
it  was  at  once  perceived  that  the  name  was  inade- 
quate, and  so  was  the  constitution.  The  name  was 
changed  to  "The  Great  Union"  and  the  constitu- 


Geographical  Changes  139 

tion  was  amended  in  regard  to  the  official  lan- 
guage so  far  as  the  non-English  speaking  nations 
were  concerned.  English  however  was  to  be  taught 
in  these  nations  and  it  has  gradually  superseded 
the  other  languages.  Schools  have  everywhere 
been  established,  and  the  church  has  been  rigidly 
separated  from  the  state.  The  state  protects  the 
church,  but  contributes  nothing  to  its  support,  nor 
does  it  compel  any  unwilling  citizen  to  contribute 
to  its  support  by  the  exemption  of  its  property 
from  its  due  proportion  of  taxation." 

''Have  any  other  nations  joined  the  Great 
Union  up  to  the  present  time  besides  those  you 
have  mentioned?" 

''None  others  have  been  admitted  into  full 
membership  as  equal  states,  but  all  the  states  of 
South  America  have  been  taken  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  "Great  Union."  They  are  being 
settled  and  developed  by  northern  people  and 
the  native  population  gradually  educated  up  to 
the  required  standard.  The  equatorial  climate  is 
naturally  unfavorable  to  enterprise,  and  develop- 
ment proceeds  slowly.  The  church  has  been  a  seri- 
ous obstacle,  claiming  time  and  attention  of  the 
natives  that  ought  to  be  devoted  to  business  and 
education.  The  country  is  being  covered  with 
railv/ays  by  northern  enterprise.  The  most  import- 
ant of  these  is  the  great  international  road  extend- 
ing from  the  city  of  Mexico  through  Central  Amer- 
ica and  the  isthmus  of  Darien  and  traversing  the 
whole  length  of  South  America,  even  into  Patago- 
nia. Branches  from  this  trunk  diverge  toward  all 
important  points  and  enormous  progress  has  been 


140  TJlc  Lunarian  Professor 

made  in  agriculture  and  mining.  The  resources  of 
this  continent  furnish  a  vast  support  to  the  teem- 
ing  population   of   North  xVmerica. 

Mention  of  these  railways  led  me  to  inquire 
of  the  Professor  concerning  the  progress  of  trans- 
portation, and  commerce  and  whether  any  radical 
innovations  had  been  introduced. 

"All  the  old  methods  of  transportation,"  said 
he,  ''have  been  greatly  improved  upon,  but  none 
of  them  entirely  superseded.  Flying  machines  have 
been  brought  to  a  reasonable  degree  of  perfection 
at  the  expense  of  much  thought  and  many  experi- 
ments, many  fortunes  and  many  broken  necks. 
But  they  cannot  take  the  place  of  the  freight  car 
or  the  steamship.  They  are  more  rapid,  easily 
making  100  to  150  miles  an  hour,  but  they  are  as 
yet  of  limited  capacity  carrying  light  letter  mails, 
and  a  few  passengers,  but  at  too  great  an  expense 
to  compete  with  the  improved  rail  and  water  car- 
riage of  the  present.  Besides  most  people  would 
rather  be  near  the  ground  in  case  of  accident.  I 
mentioned  to  you  the  greatly  reduced  cost  of  rail- 
way transportation  in  North  America  where  all 
the  lines  are  operated  by  the  state.  In  most  of 
the  South  American  states,  the  roads  are  merely 
controlled — not  owned — by  the  state  and  there  is 
active  agitation  in  favor  of  the  annexation  of  these 
states  to  the  Great  Union,  in  anticipation  in  part 
of  the  advantage  that  will  be  obtained  by  the  state 
control  of  roads  that  will  follow. 

The  most  beneficant  service  that  the  flying 
machine  has  rendered  is  its  potent  contribution 
toward  the  abolition  of  war.  Men  have  indeed  been 


Geographical  Changes  141 

tapidly  educated  out  of  the  spirit  and  habit  of 
war,  but  the  flying  machine  simply  prohibited  it. 
Without  it,  an  age  of  peace  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  reached  in  the  future,  with  it,  the  age 
of  peace  is  here.  International  warfare  is  at  an 
end  and  probably  forever." 

**I  don't  quite  see  how,"  said  I, 

"It  is  very  easy.  One  of  these  machines  can 
carry  enough  dynamite,  gun  cotton  and  other  de- 
structive explosives  to  devastate  a  city  of  100,000 
inhabitants.  It  can  at  will,  fly  over  any  place  and 
drop  its  deadly  stuff  precisely  where  it  will  do 
the  most  execution.  It  can  select  the  palace  of 
the  king,  the  houses  of  parliament  or  congress,  the 
barracks,  the  citadel,  or  the  magazine,  or  the  thick- 
ly peopled  camp  of  a  great  army.  It  can  do  this 
with  little  risk,  deliberately,  in  broad  daylight, 
poised  two  or  three  miles  above  its  victim  out  of 
reach  of  practical  gunnery;  but  in  the  night  it  can 
drop  death  upon  defenseless  and  unsuspecting 
sleepers  without  a  moments  warning.  Battle  ships 
are  equally  useless.  A  charge  of  dynamite  dropped 
from  a  flyer  being  able  to  reduce  the  greatest  ship 
to  scrap  iron  and  send  it  to  the  bottom  in  a  mo- 
ment. As  personal  armor  became  a  useless  encum- 
brance, when  gunpowder  was  introduced,  so  the 
armoring  of  ships  has  entirely  passed  away  in  the 
presence  of  the  flying  machine  and  naval  warfare 
is  no  more  practicable  than  war  or  land." 

*'I  should  think,"  said  I,  "that  the  "flyer" 
could  be  converted  into  a  dangerous  instrument 
for  criminal  use.  AATiat's  the  reason  pirates  and 
robbers    could   not   sail    down   upon   a    community 


142  The  Lunarian  Professor 

small  enough  to  be  overpowered  by  them,  and  then 
sail  off  again  with  their  booty  to  some  inaccessible 
or  solitary  place?'' 

''That  has  been  done,"  he  answered,  *'but  it 
is  no  longer  easy.  Whenever  a  fresh  emergency 
arises  in  human  affairs,  a  fresh  remedy  is 'found  to 
meet  it.  It  often  brings  its  own  remedy.  The  fly- 
er is  as  great  an  agent  in  the  hands  of  the  police 
as  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  criminal.  As  to  soli- 
tary places,  there  are  very  few  left  on  earth  that 
are  habitable,  and  there  is  not  a  spot  that  has  not 
been  seen  by  men,  and  that  is  not  subject  to  police 
surveillance." 

''Then,"  said  I,  "they  must  have  discovered 
the  north  pole." 

"Yes  they  have,  and  the  south  pole  too,"  he 
replied.  "The  first  trip  to  the  north  pole  was 
made  from  Cape  Prince  of  Wales  in  Alaska.  The 
party  flew  in  a  straight  line  from  that  point,  in 
midsummer,  north  over  the  pole  and  continuing 
in  almost  the  same  direction  to  the  south,  reached 
Hammerfest  in  Norway  a  distance  of  3,000  miles  in 
fort}^  hours  without  stopping.  Parties  have  gone 
from  Minneapolis  by  way  of  the  north  pole  in  an 
air  line  to  the  town  of  Tomsk  in  Siberia  a  distance 
of  5,500  miles,  stopping  at  the  pole  twelve  hours, 
and  finishing  the  journey  within  four  days.  These 
trips  have  often  been  repeated  and  many  similar 
ones  made.  It  is  possible  to  make  the  circuit  of 
the  earth  in  twelve  days  by  means  of  relays  at 
certain  continental  points  and  on  some  of  the 
Pacific  Islands;  but  it  can  also  be  made  by  rail 
and  water  with  onlv  four  chancres,  two  to  rail  and 


Geographical  Changes  143 

two  to  steamer  in  fiteen  to  seventeen  days.  Rail- 
roads run  to  Alaska  reaching  Bering  Sea  and  the 
Pacific  at  several  points,  and  are  met  by  corre- 
sponding roads  on  the  Russian  side.  The  water 
carriage  in  summer  is  only  across  Bering  Strait, 
but  in  winter  on  account  of  ice  the  passage  is 
made  further  south  and  is  longer." 

*'Why  don't  they  tunnel  Bering  Strait/'  I  in- 
quired, "or  bridge  it?" 

**They  will  in  the  future  tunnel  it  part  way 
and  build  a  dam  or  embankment  the  rest  of  the 
way,"  he  replied,  "and  utilize  the  enormous  power 
of  the  current  passing  through  there  to  drive  the 
trains  1,000  miles  on  each  side  of  the  strait,  but 
the  time  has  not  yet  arrived.  A  bridge  would  not 
stay  there,  it  would  be  swept  away  by  the  ice." 

"Isn't  there  danger  of  collision  between  these 
flying  machines?" 

"Many  fatal  collisions  took  place  when  the  fly- 
ers were  first  introduced.  It  was  found  necessary 
to  regulate  them  by  government  supervision.  The 
routes  between  all  points  have  been  carefully  laid 
out  and  the  going  and  returning  paths  separated 
by  a  wide  and  safe  space. 

"You  mentioned  the  abolition  of  war.  I  hard- 
ly see  how  it  could  be  while  there  were  any  unciv- 
ilized nations  on  earth,"  I  observed. 

"I  said  international  warfare  was  abolished." 
he  returned.  "After  Russia  had  taken  possession 
of  Asia  and  settled  its  ownership,  and  Africa  had 
been  divided  up  amongst  the  western  European 
nations,  the  governments  of  all  nations  were  civil- 
ized.    The  regulation   of  such  barbarous   subjects 


144  The  Lunarian  Professor 

as  they  mig:ht  be  responsible  for,  was  simply  a 
question  of  policing,  not  war.  An  insurrection  by 
them  could  not  succeed  against  the  destructive 
weapons  held  by  the  government.  But  as  interna- 
tional affairs  are  now  settled,  there  is  no  excuse 
for  any  responsible  body  of  men  to  resort  to  force. 
The  principle  of  arbitration  first  adopted  between 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  was  subse- 
quently extended  to  all  civilized  nations.  Later 
there  was  framed  for  the  guidance  of  Arbitrators 
of  international  questions,  an  international  consti- 
tution or  law  of  nations  agreed  to  by  treaty  be- 
tween the  principal  nations  and  finally  ratified  by 
all.  This  constitution  described  the  boundaries  of 
all  nations,  which  it  was  agreed  were  not  to  be 
disturbed  except  on  consent  of  all  the  parties 
concerned,  thus  doing  away  with  wars  for  con- 
quest. 

A  criminal  code  was  enacted,  by  which  all 
crimes  between  subjects  of  different  nations  were 
to  be  tried,  and  an  international  court  was  estab- 
lished, composed  of  Judges  from  every  nation. 
"WTien  a  suit  is  brought  before  this  court,  those 
judges  appointed  by  the  nations  parties  to  the  suit, 
are  excused  from  serving,  and  the  case  is  tried  by 
the  others.  Questions  of  damages  by  one  nation 
and  its  decrees  when  finally  reached  are  acquiesced 
in  without  hesitation,  besause  it  is  keenly  recogniz- 
ed that  any  settlement  even  when  not  entirely 
satisfactory,  is  preferable  to  war.  In  fact  war  is 
not  recognized  as  a  practical  method  of  settling 
anything." 

"If  war  is  at  an  end,  what  have  the  European 


Geographical  CJimiges  145 

Nations  done  with  their  great  armies,"  I  inquired. 
''In  my  day  most  of  the  surplus  wealth  of  those 
nations  went  to  support  their  vast  armies,  and  the 
masses  of  the  industrial  classes  were  kept  in  pover- 
ty, because  their  earnings  were  so  largely  diverted 
to  that  purpose.  And  yet  there  appeared  to  be 
too  many  w^orkers,  for  their  wages  were  very  low. 
If  the  soldiers  were  set  to  work  at  peaceful  occu- 
pations and  married  and  raised  families,  the  popu- 
lation must  have  increased  and  the  wages  gone 
still  lower.     How  was  that?" 

''Well,  not  quite  like  that,"  he  replied."  "The 
more  workers  the  more  w^ealth,  provided  they  have 
plenty  of  raw  material  to  work  on.  The  aboli- 
tion of  war  gave  a  great  impetus  to  the  production 
of  wealth  in  Europe.  A  great  demand  was  created 
for  raw  materials,  such  as  wool,  cotton,  timber, 
iron  and  other  metals  and  for  food  stuffs.  A  large 
part  of  these  supplies  had  to  be  furnished  from 
other  countries.  The  United  States  furnished  vast 
quantities.  This  increased  commerce,  and  as  the 
population  increased,  emigration  was  stimulated. 
As  the  United  States  filled  up,  the  emigration  was 
diverted  from  this  country  to  South  America  and 
to  Africa.  The  products  and  exports  of  these 
countries  correspondingly  increased.  The  equator- 
ial regions  are  most  prolific  in  all  the  products  of 
the  soil.  The  temperate  zones  furnish  the  most 
vigorous  people  for  consuming  these  and  turning 
them  into  wealth.  The  relations  between  these 
two  regions  are  reciprocal  and  complemental  rather 
than  competitive.  Free  trade  was  first  established 
in    those    directions    and    it    soon    forced   itself   in 


146  The  Lunarian   Professor 

others,  until  it  became  the  rule  the  world  ovei*. 
The  history  of  western  Europe  during  the  twen- 
tieth century,  is  bound  up  with  the  development 
and  settlement  of  South  America  and  Africa,  es- 
pecially the  latter.  Modern  Africa  is  as  much  a 
child  of  Europe  as  America  is,  and  the  native  races 
and  tongues  are  being  rapidly  displaced  by  the 
European.  Population  in  Europe  naturally  increases 
in  a  more  rapid  ratio  than  ever  before,  due 
to  the  suppression  of  the  ravages  and  waste  of 
war,  the  more  scientific  treatment  of  disease,  and 
control  of  epidemics,  the  greater  comfort  and  pros- 
perity of  the  people.  But  with  their  increased 
possibilities  for  comfort  have  come,  an  increased 
standard  and  expectation  of  life,  so  that  it  cannot 
be  said  that  the  people  are  any  better  satisfied 
with  life  than  they  were  before.  The  struggles 
are  as  intense  and  the  disappointments  as  stinging 
as  ever.  The  incentives  to  emigration  have  not 
diminished  while  facilities  inducements  and  flatter- 
ing prospects  to  the  immigrant  are  vastly  greater 
than  ever. 

Europe  is  the  great  breeding  ground  for  Afri- 
ca, as  it  was  formerly  for  North  America.  And 
the  human  inundation  that  formerly  poured  itself 
into  the  United  States  is  diverted  chiefly  to  Africa, 
but  in  four  fold  volume." 

''Surely,"  said  I,  *'the  capacity  of  the  earth 
for  supporting  the  human  family  must  be  almost 
exhausted.  It  is  sickening  to  contemplate  the 
suffering  that  will  be  entailed  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  that  it  seems  to  me  must  inevitably  come 
soon.     Evidently  from  what  you  say,  Europe  must 


Geographical  Changes  14'J' 

be  about  as  full  as  it  will  hold.  I  suppose  the 
great  migration  you  speak  of  represents  the  sur- 
plus crop  of  folks  that  the  continent  must  get  rid 
of  in  order  to  let  those  that  remain  live  in  tolera- 
ble comfort.  When  Africa  and  South  America  get 
to  be  as  full  as  Europe  and  the  United  States,  so 
that  they  can  no  longer  receive  this  tide  of  emigra- 
tion, then  what  is  to  be  done?  For  anything  I  can 
see  famine  will  have  to  sweep  away  some  of  the 
race  in  order  that  the  rest  may  exist,  and  after 
all  is  that  any  better  than  war?" 

''At  any  rate,"  said  he,  *'we  have  not  reached 
that  yet.  We  have  now  reached  the  beginning  of 
the  twenty-first  century.  The  population  of  the 
earth  has  reached  the  very  considerable  number 
of  4,000,000,000  or  almost  three  times  what  is  was 
in  your  day.  Yet  we  concede  a  three  fold  increase 
of  that  figure  before  starvation  or  some  other  re- 
pressive agency  will  be  necessary  to  stop  the  in- 
crease of  the  population  and  that  will  only  be 
reached  by  the  year  2070." 

He  here  pulled  out  a  pencil  of  curious  make 
and  with  his  middle  left  hand  dashed  off  some 
strange  looking  characters  on  a  blank  space  on 
the  profile.  He  was  evidently  figuring,  for  in  a 
moment  he  went  on  to  say  that  he  found  that  when 
the  40,000,000  square  miles  of  habitable  land  on 
the  earth  were  divided  equally  between  12,000,000,- 
000  of  people  they  would  have  about  two  acres 
each. 

''  I  ventured  to  say,  I  did  not  think  two  acres 
enough  to  furnish  an  individual  with  food,  taking 
his   chances  of  bad  seasons  from  droughts,  floods 


148  The  Lunarian  Professor 

etc.  Besides  men  could  hardly  live  without  tim- 
ber and  they  could  have  none  if  all  the  land  were 
cultivated.  Moreover,  they  must  have  animals  to 
furnish  leather,  wool  etc.,  and  land  would  be  re- 
quired for  their  sustenance. 

Land  must  be  also  devoted  to  cotton,  flax  hemp 
and  so  on  for  clothes  etc.  AVhen  you  allow  for 
such  things  as  these,  I  said,  I  thought  the  area  de- 
voted to  the  production  of  food  would  not  be  much 
over  one  acre  to  the  individual  by  the  year  2070, 
if  he  was  right  about  the  number  of  people  there 
would  then  be. 

*'You  are  only  thinking  of  the  crude  methods 
people  had  in  your  day  of  getting  their  food  from 
the  earth,"  said  he.  ''They  were  at  the  mercy  of 
the  uncontrolled  action  of  natural  forces  and  ac- 
cidents. The  rain  and  sunshine  naturally  falling 
on  an  acre  of  land  enabled  them  to  raise  so  many 
bushels  of  wheat  or  beans  or  carrots  or  beets.  But 
if  the  rain  did  not  fall  or  the  sun  failed  to  shine 
or  there  was  too  much  rain  or  two  much  sunshine 
or  the  weather  was  too  cold  or  the  wind  too  bois- 
terous, the  farmer  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  fickle 
elements  and  his  crop  a  failure.  In  a  few  places 
irrigation  was  practiced,  men  got  a  partial  control 
of  the  conditions,  but  these  places  were  limited, 
and  the  control  incomplete. 

If  you  will  call  to  mind  the  information  I  have 
given  you  of  the  artificial  production  of  food  and 
other  necessaries  of  existence  among  the  Lunarians, 
you  will  readily  see  that  the  resources  of  the  earth 
to  sustain  its  population  do  not  depend  altogether 
on  the  amount  of  land  surface  that  men  can  culti- 


Geographical  Changes  14:9 

vate  to  beets  and  potatoes — the  amount  on  which 
the  sun  shines  and  the  rain  falls.  Surface  you 
must  have  of  course  for  people  to  live  and  to  move 
on.  But  when  you  learn  how  to  utilize  it  there  is 
material  under  every  acre  on  an  average,  more 
than  sufficient  for  the  sustenance  of  all  the  people 
that  could  stand  on  it.  The  soil  in  which  you 
plant  your  seeds  is  nothing  but  the  disintegrated 
rock  of  a  thin  layer  of  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
Below  it  are  rocks  of  the  same  sort  in  quantities 
enough  to  make  millions  of  such  soils.  If  you 
knew  how,  you  could  make  your  food  products  out 
of  the  soil  directly  instead  of  waiting  for  the 
growth  of  plants  in  it,  and  if  the  soil  should  give 
out  you  could  make  them  from  the  rocks  below.'* 

''Yes,"  said  I,  ''but  will  mankind  ever  find  out 
how  to  do  this!  Will  you  wise  and  experienced 
Lunarians  show  us? 

"No,  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should.  You 
will  find  it  out  fast  enough  yourselves.  Your 
chemists  even  in  your  day  had  begun  to  take  les- 
sons in  chemical  synthesis,  and  as  time  went  on, 
and  the  necessity  increased,  their  efforts  were  stim- 
ulated and  constantly  became  more  successful  un- 
til now  they  can  produce  a  number  of  artificial 
foods  from  the  original  elements  without  the  neces- 
sity of  raising  vegetables  or  animals  by  the  action 
of  natural  growth.  Looking  over  into  the  twenty- 
first  century,  we  see  that  they  will  easily  be  able 
to  produce  food  from  the  elements  as  fast  as  Re- 
quired. Their  abilities  and  facilities  will  keep 
pace  with  the  population.  This  implies  that  the 
race  will  not  have  to  be  checked  in  its  expansion 


150  The  Lunarian  Professor 

by  lack  of  food.  The  feature  of  evolution  and  se- 
lection of  the  fittest  by  means  of  a  struggle  for 
food  will  be  entirely  eliminated.  The  matter  will 
be  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  people  themselves.'* 

*'How  about  clothing,"  I  asked,  ''will  they  pro- 
duce that  too  by  the  aid  of  chemistry?" 

*'Yes  they  will.  Sheep  will  not  be  required  for 
their  wool  any  more  than  their  flesh.  A  substitute 
will  be  found  for  leather  as  well  as  beef.  Better 
and  more  durable  clothing  will  be  made  directly 
from  minerals  than  were  produced  in  your  time 
from  vegetable  and  animal  substances.  Metals 
and  artificial  mineral  products  began  early  in  the 
twentieth  century  and  even  before,  to  supplant 
wood  in  buildings  and  many  other  structures.  So 
at  present  the  use  of  wood  is  greatly  reduced  and 
during  the  coming  century  it  will  be  almost  dis- 
continued; a  great  many  things  are  now  made  of 
Alumina  that  were  formerly  made  of  wood,  and 
that  metal  has  become  cheaper  and  more  abundant 
than  iron.  Glass  is  also  very  much  used,  and 
methods  have  been  discovered  of  giving  it  any  de- 
sired temper,  so  that  it  is  made  flexible  and  tough 
like  pewter  or  firm  and  elastic  like  steel.  It  can 
also  be  made  fibrous  and  soft  as  cotton  and  can 
be  spun  and  woven  into  textile  fabrics." 

**But  what  are  they  going  to  do  for  power  and 
fuel?"  I  asked.  **If  there  is  to  be  such  an  in- 
crease of  population,  an  enormous  consumption  of 
fuel  and  power  will  follow.  Of  course  they  will 
use  the  coal  while  it  lasts,  but  the  supply  of  that 
is  limited,  and  if  that  is  the  only  dependence,  all 


Sun  Power  151 

industries   will  sooner   or  later   be   brought   to   an 
end.'' 

**The  coal,"  said  he,  "was  an  excellent  make 
shift  for  temporary  use  until  a  more  enduring 
supply  of  power  was  discovered  to  supersede  it. 
But  even  now  it  could  if  necessary  be  almost  en- 
tirely dispensed  with  and  yet  there  are  still  vast 
deposits  of  it  untouched.  In  the  long  distant 
future  the  time  will  come  when  the  coal  will  be 
regarded  as  a  deposit  of  food  for  your  race  as  it 
is  now  with  ours,  but  it  will  not  be  consumed  for 
its  heat  or  its  power  except  in  that  way." 

*'Have  our  people  then  learned  how  to  get  pow- 
er as  you  do  from  the  use  of  the  principle  of  the 
repulsion  of  gravitation?" 

"Indeed  they  have  not,"  he  answered,  "and 
they  are  very  unlikely  ever  to  find  out  how  to  do 
it  unless  instructed  by  us;  and  that  will  never  be 
till  the  Lunarians  become  lunatics.  The  new  power 
that  has  been  developed  and  already  brought  into 
considerable  use  and  which  will  soon  become  a 
substitute  for  ail  others  and  endure  as  long  as  the 
earth  is  habitable  is  simply  sunlight ;  and  the 
discovery  that  is  to  prove  by  far  the  most  valuable 
ever  made  by  your  race  is  the  direct  conversion  of 
its  force  into  electricity,  which  can  as  you  know  be 
conveyed  hundreds  of  miles  and  applied  to  any 
sort  of  machinery  required.  When  coal  is  used  to 
produce  electricity,  the  process  is  after  all  an  in- 
direct way  of  utilizing  the  force  of  the  sun's  rays. 
Ages  ago  these  rays  created  the  vegetation  that 
afterwards  became  coal,  and  in  burning  the  coal 
now,  the  force  of  the  sun's  rays  consumed  in  its 


152  The  Lunarian  Professor 

production  is  again  brought  into  action  in  heating 
the  water,  that  expands  into  steam  that  drives  the 
engine,  that  turns  the  dynamo,  that  creates  the 
electric  current.  It  was  seen  long  ago  that  if  some 
process  could  be  devised  by  which  the  force  of  the 
sun-light  could  be  consumed  in  the  creation  of 
electricity  directly,  the  suns  rays  of  today  could 
be  utilized  in  the  production  of  power  instead  of 
using  up  the  coal  that  was  produced  by  them  in 
former  ages.  .It  was  discovered  in  your  day  that 
sun-light  falling  upon  the  metal  selenium  is  turned 
in  part  into  electricity.  Acting  on  this  hint  your 
scientists  experimented  with  that  metal  and  others, 
and  tried  hundreds  of  combinations  and  alloys. 
They  have  discovered  many  compounds  that  pos- 
sess this  property,  which  is  found  to  depend  on  the 
sizes  and  shapes  of  the  spaces  between  the  mole- 
cules of  the  metal.  The  impact  of  the  undulations 
of  the  ether  that  give  rise  to  light,  striking  into 
the  ether  confined  in  these  peculiarly  shaped  spaces 
impart  to  it  the  sort  of  motion  these  shapes  make 
it  competent  to  take,  which  is  the  new  form  of  mo- 
tion, electricity.  They  were  largely  assisted  and 
guided  in  their  investigations  by  spectrum  analy- 
sis. The  apparatus  for  the  production  of  electrici- 
ty in  this  way  is  necessarily  of  large  dimensions 
presenting  large  surface  to  the  sun,  and  as  yet  is 
rather  expensive,  but  once  made,  it  lasts  forever 
and  produces  electricity  whenever  the  sun  shines. 
Improvements  are  constantly  being  made  that  re- 
duce the  cost  and  increase  the  efficiency.  These 
machines  are  arranged  to  turn  automatically,  a  cer- 
tain  face  to  the  sun,   revolvinij    on    a    horizontal 


Geographical  Changes  153 

plane  diurnallj^  and  changing  their  declination  ver- 
tically to  follow  thfe  north  and  south  movement  of 
the  sun  through  the  seasons.  The  electricity  is 
transmitted  to  storage  batteries  and  a  surplus  thus 
accumulated  during  sunshine  to  be  used  at  night 
and  in  cloudy  weather  or  carried  off  to  be  used 
elsewhere.  These  machines  yield  especially  good 
results  in  tropical  latitudes  and  in  localities  where 
clear  weather  predominates,  such  as  southern  Cali- 
fornia, Arizona,,  northern  Mexico,  the  Sahara  des- 
ert, Egypt,  Arabia,  Tartary,  Central  Australia  etc. 
In  all  such  countries  railroads  are  operated  at  nom- 
inal expense. 

Stations  at  intervals  transmit  the  power  sever- 
al hundred  miles  on  either  side.  As  there  is  practi- 
cally no  limit  to  this  power  it  has  come  to  be  used 
for  the  accomplishment  of  undertakings  that  were 
hardly  dreamed  of  before.  The  irrigation  and  de- 
velopment of  deserts  by  means  of  artesian  wells 
and  by  streams  brought  from  a  distance,  followed 
by  the  construction  of  roads,  settlement  and  cul- 
tivation are  being  vigorously  prosecuted  in  all  parts 
where  the  climate  is  not  too  cold.  Large  tracts 
notably  in  the  Sahara  and  Cobi  deserts  and  in  Ara- 
bia and  Tartary,  have  already  been  made  produc- 
tive and  populous.  This  power  can  be  conveyed 
to  great  distances  from  the  point  where  it  is  de- 
veloped, and  made  to  do  work  in  places  practically 
inaccessible  to  any  other  form  of  power.  Excava- 
tion of  canals,  railway  cuts,  tunnels  and  mines  with 
the  transportation  of  materials  for  embankments  is 
prosecuted  with  tremendous  energy.  Innumerable 
mines  are  being  pushed  far  into  the  bowels  of  the 


lo4:  The  Lunarian  Professor 

earth  and  the  interior  explored  and  honeycombed 
in  many  directions.  This  work  is  however  destined 
to  be  of  vastly  more  importance  in  the  distant  fut- 
ure than  at  the  present.  But  I  think  you  can  now 
see  that  with  practically  unlimited  power  and  un- 
limited raw  materials  for  the  construction  of  the 
human  race  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  race  itself 
3^our  fears  that  the  increase  of  population  will  ever 
press  uncomfortably  on  the  means  of  subsistence 
are  not  well  founded." 

*'Yes  I  do  begin  to  see  that,"  said  I.  *'It  is  all 
very  wonderful.  ^Yhat  a  career  the  race  has  before 
it!  AVhy  it  has  hardly  got  out  of  its  cradle  yet. 
"What  a  misfortune  that  I  was  not  reserved  to  be 
born  two  or  three  centuries  later  so  I  could  see 
some  of  these  future  glories!" 

''Nay,  nay."  he  replied,  ''that  is  a  vain  wish. 
You  may  be  as  happy  in  your  own  time  as  you 
could  be  in  the  future.  In  all  the  ages  of  the  past, 
people  have  been  found  expressing  a  poor  opinion 
of  their  own  times,  extolling  the  golden  age  that 
was  past  or  the  millennium  that  was  to  come;  and 
it  will  be  so  in  the  future.  If  you  were  to  live  two 
centuries  hence  you  would  see  as  many  defects  and 
shortcomings,  and  anticipate  as  many  still  future 
improvements  and  achievements  as  you  did  in  your 
day." 

' '  AYell,  I  suppose,  that  must  be  so ;  and  yet  with 
such  an  apparently  absolute  control  over  the  earth 
it  would  seem  that  mankind  might  make  themselves 
comfortable  and  contented." 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  155 


CHAPTER  IX. 
The  Problem  of  Over  Population. 

''Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  and  will  be 
accomplished  by  your  enterprising  race,"  said  he, 
''there  are  some  things  about  the  earth  that  they 
will  never  be  able  to  control  or  improve.  There 
are  two  in  particular  of  essential  importance.  One 
is  the  area  of  the  earth's  surface,  which  your  race 
can  never  increase  no  matter  what  its  necessities 
may  be;  the  other  is  the  slow  but  very  certain  re- 
frigeration of  the  earth's  climate  by  which  we  may 
be  sure  that  a  time  will  be  reached  in  the  long 
distant  future  when  the  habitable  surface  shall 
gradually  be  reduced  till  at  last  no  part  of  the 
earth's  surface  will  be  tolerable  to  any  living  crea- 
ture. So  in  effect  while  the  demand  of  the  race 
will  be  for  more  room  it  will  constantly  be  requir- 
ed to  put  up  with  less." 

•  "But,"  said  I,  ''isn't  that  a  good  ways  off? 
The  extreme  refrigeration  of  the  earth  is  a  process 
involving  millions  of  years  according  to  our  scien- 
tists." 

"Yes,  it  will  be  a  long  time  before  any  import- 
ant reduction  of  area  can  take  place,  but  not  long 
before  the  present  room  will  become  very  much 
cramped.  Only  a  few  moments  ago  we  reckoned 
that  by  the  year  2070  there  would  be  about 
two     acres     to     each     of     the     12,000,000,000     of 


156  The  Lunarian  Professor 

inhabitants,  on  which  to  live  and  move  and 
produce  the  means  of  subsistence.  If  the  race 
should  then  be  doubling  every  thirty  years, 
in  2100  there  will  be  but  one  acre  for  each; 
and  if  they  keep  on  increasing  in  2130  a  half  acre; 
in  2160  a  quarter;  in  2190  an  eighth,  in  2220  a  six- 
teenth; in  2250  a  lot  thirty-three  by  forty-one  and 
one-fourth  feet,  which  in  2280  is  reduced  to  thirty- 
three  by  twenty  feet  8  inches  and  this  in  2292  four 
hundred  years  after  the  centennial  of  the  discovery 
of  America  by  Columbus  that  was  celebrated  in 
your  day  at  Chicago,  will  be  reduced  to  thirty-three 
by  sixteen  and  one-half,  or  two  rods  by  one.  If 
the  population  should  get  to  be  as  numerous  as 
that  the  entire  earth  would  be  a  city  inhabited 
twelve  times  as  densly  as  the  city  of  Minneapolis 
was  in  your  day.  This  of  course  is  the  average. 
Some  places  are  more  desirable  than  others  and 
these  would  be  more  densely  packed.  Already  at 
the  close  of  the  twentieth  century  many  of  the 
pleasanter  parts  of  the  earth  have  become  uncom- 
fortably populous,  not  from  want  of  the  means  of 
subsistence,  but  from  want  of  room  to  carry  on 
the  business  and  pleasures  of  life.  And  yet  the 
growth  of  population  may  be  said  to  be  just  fairly 
commenced.  It  is  obvious  from  what  can  already 
be  seen  that  it  will  very  soon  be  necessary  to  place 
some  artificial  restriction  on  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation or  else  there  will  be  such  suffering  among 
men  as  will  of  itself  operate  to  keep  down  the  num- 
ber of  people  by  killing  them  off  faster  and  short- 
ening the  average  duration  of  life.  These  questions 
are  already  being  seriously  considered  by  the  phil- 


Tlie  Prohlem  of  Over  Population  137 

osophers  and  wise  men,  and  many  plans  are  being 
discussed. 

There  are  some  pessimists  who  declare  there  is 
no  remedy.  They  say  it  was  an  egregious  blunder 
on  the  part  of  society  to  attempt  the  banishment  of 
suffering.  It  was  suffering  that  had  in  all  ages 
kept  down  the  population,  so  that  the  world  re- 
mained roomy  enough  to  live  in  with  some  com- 
fort. They  hold  that  suffering  is  a  necessary  con- 
comitant of  comfort  and  we  are  bound  to  have  it 
both  before  it,  as  a  necessary  antecedent  and  after 
it,  as  anecessary  consequent.  It  is  the  law  of  na- 
ture and  it  is  vain  to  try  to  evade  it.  By  banish- 
ing war  and  want  and  disease,  and  reducing  the 
problem  of  life  to  an  easy  pleasant  certainty,  socie- 
t},  they  say,  has  caused  herself  to  be  invaded  by 
fresh  innumerable  hordes  of  human  beings  that 
step  into  the  arena  of  life  from  the  secret  caves  of 
non  existence  as  if  attracted' by  the  feast  of  good 
things  that  she  has  provided  for  herself.  When 
the  repressive  hand  of  suffering  is  lifted  a  little 
the  human  species  breed  and  grow  like  rabbits  un- 
til they  feel  its  hard  pressure  again. 

Nature,  they  affirm,  is  no  sentimentalist.  Her 
ways  are  all  direct,  hard,  cruel  and  brutal.  She  is 
extravagant  and  wasteful  of  effort  and  parsimoni- 
ous of  results.  She  creates  a  thousand  seeds  of 
grain  or  grass  or  tree,  only  one  of  w^hich  will  be- 
come a  grown  plant  and  reproduce  its  kind.  She 
is  even  more  prodigal  with  the  spawn  of  fishes  de- 
stroying millions  for  one  she  brings  to  maturity. 
There  is  nothing  to  show  that  she  cares  any  more 
for  the  human  race  than  for  fishes.    When  men  get 


158  Tlie  Lunarian  Professor 

too  numerous  she  destroys  them  as  ruthlessly  as  if 
they  "were  so  many  herring  or  clams.  They  assert 
it  is  impossible  to  evade  or  even  to  improve  upon 
the  methods  of  nature.  They  point  to  the  teeming 
multitudes  that  have  swarmed  upon  the  earth  dur- 
ing the  last  century  in  such  comparative  security 
and  comfort  as  to  invite  a  still  greater  inundation 
during  the  century  to  come;  and  they  declare  it 
to  be  one  of  the  characteristic  stratagems  of  na- 
ture, only  restraining  her  grim  and  malicious  hu- 
mor in  order  to  make  it  the  more  tragic  and  appal- 
ling when  she  does  give  it  play.  And  they  aver 
that  it  would  be  better  even  now  to  drop  a  large 
part  if  not  all  of  the  artificial  stimulations  to  the 
expansion  of  the  population  that  have  by  insensi- 
ble degrees  been  grafted  upon  state  policy  during 
the  last  century.  Let  every  tub  stand  on  its  own 
bottom,  say  they,  let  natural  selection  secure  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  let  the  unfit  be  quietly 
eliminated  by  whichever  of  the  numerous  methods 
iiature  finds  most  applicable.  In  opposition  to  these 
are  the  optimists  who  hold  that  the  human  race  is 
nature's  pet.  If  she  could  be  said  to  plan  anything 
or  to  have  any  preferences  in  favor  of  anything,  it 
was  the  human  family.  After  making  trial  in  suc- 
cession of  the  Trilobite,  the  Orthoceras,  the  Shark, 
the  Megalosaurus,  the  Pterodactyl,  the  IMastodon 
and  others,  she  put  them  all  down  and  brought  for- 
ward man  and  placed  him  over  them  all,  and  made 
him  master  of  the  earth.  He  was  a  frail  insignifi- 
cant helpless  creature  without  weight  power  or  dig- 
nity. Other  animals  could  beat  him  swimming  div- 
ing, flying,  running,  fighting.     There  was  only  one 


The  Problem  of  Ovei  Population  159 

thing  he  could  do  tolerably  well  and  that  was  to 
climb  a  tree.  That  was  his  capital,  his  stock  in 
trade  as  one  might  say,  for  it  developed  his  hands 
and  quickened  his  senses.  Nature  took  this  unpre- 
possessing, unpromising  creature,  educated  and  de- 
veloped him  in  her  stern  school  and  by  her  unten- 
der  methods,  put  brains  into  him,  civilized  him  and 
fitted  him  to  control  the  world  and  finally  to 
govern  himself.  This  last  lesson  he  has  not  yet 
perfectly  mastered,  but  he  is  learning  more  of  it 
every  day.  Progress,  say  they,  never  takes  a  back 
track.  The  pessimistic  theory  that  nature's  plan 
is  to  let  every  fellow  look  out  for  himself  and  the 
devil  take  the  hindmost,  is  no  longer  true.  The 
race  has  passed  that  place  and  the  new  ideal  is; 
every  fellow  for  all  the  rest,  and  no  one  left  be- 
hind. Until  this  is  practically  realized  they  say 
the  race  will  not  have  fulfilled  its  destiny,  and  re- 
treat is  impossible.  Moreover  it  is  not  necessary; 
for  the  new  departure  is  after  all  as  natural  as  the 
old  way,  and  is  in  fact  only  a  continuation  of  it; 
a  turn  in  the  road  as  it  were;  and  it  may  quite  as 
well  be  depended  upon  to  rectify  all  the  difficul- 
ties of  its  own  creation.  If  the  principle  of  mutual 
succor,  sympathy  and  assistance  leads  to  over  pop- 
ulation, the  same  principle  must  furnish  the  reme- 
dy. The  optimists  admit  the  contention  of  the  pes- 
simists that  this  trouble  is  looming  up,  and  the 
philosophers  of  all  schools  are  beginning  to  feel 
serious.  They  are  discussing  such  figures  as  we 
had  before  us  a  few  moments  ago  and  endeavoring 
to  fix  the  date  at  which  a  halt  will  have  to  be 
called,   and  the  means   devised  by  which  it  is  to 


160  Tlie  Lunarian  Professor 

be  accomplished.  Some  say  the  population  is  dense 
enough  now.  Others  point  out  that  with  the  in- 
creased means  of  subsistence  there  need  not  be  any- 
thing uncomfortable  in  a  population  of  12,000,000,- 
000  which  they  estimate  will  not  be  reached  till 
2070,  or  70  years  from  the  present  (A.  D.  2000.) 
And  they  are  hopeful  enough  to  believe  that  by 
that  time,  human  wit  will  have  discovered  some 
way  of  controlling  population  w^ithout  violence  to 
human  happiness.  All  agree  that  if  society  is  to 
be  maintained  on  the  present  scale  it  is  high  time 
to  settle  the  manner  in  which  the  great  question 
of  population  is  to  be  met  and  handled.  It  is  the 
most  difficult  question  that  has  ever  demanded 
human  attention. 

In  your  day  there  w^as  already  beginning  to  be 
some  discussion  in  regard  to  stirpiculture  and  the 
scientific  regulation  of  the  family  and  rearing  of 
children.  But  it  did  not  at  that  time  reach  a  prac- 
tical stage.  No  scientific  conclusions  on  the  sub- 
ject of  marriage  have  yet  been  able  to  displace 
sentiment  and  instinct.  But  soon,  as  I  have  already 
told  you,  the  rearing  of  the  children  was  under- 
taken by  the  state  and  removed  from  the  caprice 
of  sentiment  and  ignorance  greatly  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  children  and  of  course  tlTe  race.  But 
the  question  of  marriage  remains  the  same  senti- 
mental business  it  was  in  the  days  of  Jacob.  And 
with  the  increasing  independence  of  w^omen  it  has 
become  even  more  a  question  of  the  feelings  than 
it  was  in  your  day  when  women  often  married 
for  a  home  and  men  sometimes  for  money.  As  the 
problems  of  life,  marriage  etc.,  have  become  ques- 


Tlie  ProWem  of  Over  Popidaiion  101 

tions  of  state,  inviting  and  even  requiring  ample 
and  public  discussion,  the  squeamishness  and  false 
modesty  with  which  they  were  approached  in  your 
day  have  entirely  disappeared.  The  public  inter- 
est and  the  rights  of  the  state  in  the  question  of 
the  perpetuation  of  the  race  are  freely  admitted 
and  discussed.  The  public  mind  has  been  gradual- 
ly prepared  for  this  by  the  gradual  assumption  by 
the  state  of  the  care  and  education  of  the  youth, 
and  by  its  experience  in  the  treatment  of  crimin- 
als. Where  the  treatment  of  all  the  youth  is  uni- 
form and  some  after  all,  turn  out  to  be  criminals 
as  they  occasionally  do,  the  cause  is  looked  for  in 
their  parentage.  The  state  is  in  condition  to  keep 
track  of  ill  born  children,  and  after  leaving  the 
schools  they  are  still  kept  under  the  eye  and  guid- 
ing advice  and  restraint  if  necessary  of  a  special 
department  of  the  police  service.  In  this  way  the 
criminally  disposed  are  known  in  advance,  and 
much  crime  is  no  doubt  prevented.  The  criminally 
disposed  are  regarded  and  treated  as  mentally 
diseased. 

There  has  been  much  discussion  pro  and  con 
of  this  mode  of  punishment,  or — as  some  prefer  to 
express  it — mode  of  treatment.  But  it  is  now  gen- 
erally conceded  that  society  is  entirely  justifiable 
in  employing  this  mode  of  defense,  especially  since 
capital  punishment  has  been  abolished,  and  this  is 
the  maximum  penalty  that  is  corporally  inflicted. 
The  public  mind  having  had  before  it  the  operation 
of  this  treatment  as  a  sort  of  object  lesson  is  the 
more  ready  to  listen  to  the  proposition  that  is  now 
being  discussed  to  use  this  same  treatment  for  the 


162  The  Lunarian  Professor 

defense  of  society  against  herself.  The  question 
is  one  that  naist  be  approached  with  the  utmost 
consideration  and  tenderness  as  well  as  fairness 
and  justic  applied  after  the  most  careful  and 
expert  selection  and  with  due  regard  to  the  char- 
acter and  physical  and  mental  qualities  that  are 
due  to  be  expected  from  such  conditions.  It  is 
natural  selection  they  say^  artificially  applied 
without  the  circumlocution  and  tedious  delay  of 
nature's  ordinary  methods.  Left  to  herself, 
nature  in  the  long  run  provides  for  the  survi- 
val of  the  fittest.  "We  now  propose  say  they  to 
make  the  same  provision  in  the  short  run.  AVe  are 
now  approaching  one  of  those  crises  in  human  af- 
fairs in  which  something  has  to  be  done,  and  if 
men  have  not  the  wit  to  do  it  themselves,  nature 
takes  hold  and  performs  it  in  her  hard  way  with 
small  tenderness  for  anybody's  feelings  or  notions 
of  propriety.  If  we  are  competent,  we  will  find 
some  way  out  of  this  difficulty  without  losing  our 
civilization;  if  we  are  not,  nature  will  put  us  back 
in  the  primer  of  barbarism,  to  learn  it  all  over 
again  as  she  has  done  a  dozen  times  before.  AYe 
have  it  in  our  power,  and  it  is  our  obvious  duty 
to  reduce  the  population,  or  to  stop  its  increase, 
and  to  do  it  in  the  very  scientific  manner  that  is 
at  our  disposal,  by  which  the  best  blood  is  selected 
for  transmission  and  the  poorest  is  quietly  eliminat- 
ed without  shock  or  pain  to  the  individual  or  to 
society.  Not  only  can  the  best  blood  in  general  be 
made  exclusive,  but  any  particular  brand  of  best 
blood  can  be  picked  out  to  receive  special  encour- 
agement.   We  can  preserve  a  class  of  talent  inval- 


Tlie  Problem  of  Over  Population  103 

liable  to  civilization  that  nature  could  not  be  de- 
pended on  to  select  for  preservation  in  the  hard 
struggle  for  existence — the  gentle,  the  unselfish, 
the  intellectual  worker  and  the  poet.  Nor  can  she 
be  depended  on  to  eliminate  the  ruffianly,  brutal, 
criminal  and  selfish  members  whose  room  is  better 
than  their  company.  Rather  these  are  the  very 
ones  she  would  be  likely  to  save. 

This  is  all  in  our  hands,  say  they,  and  if  we 
have  the  nerve  to  carry  it  out,  we  can  make  the 
earth  a  perpetual  paradise.  All  we  have  to  do  is 
to  disqualify  in  their  infancy  the  stirps  whose  pos- 
terity we  prefer  not  to  see." 

The  Professor  paused  here  and  changed  the  pro- 
file to  his  'jokers'  or  middle  pair  of  hands  and  pro- 
ceeded to  roll  up  the  20th  century  and  expose  the 
21st. 

''I  believe,"  he  resumed,  ''that  we  had  better 
step  forward  another  century,  take  our  stand  at 
the  year  2100  and  survey  the  century  retrospective- 
ly, as  we  have  done  the  20th.  It  seems  more  natu- 
ral to  speak  of  it  in  the  past  tense  since  we  have 
become  accustomed  to  that  way." 

*'A11  right,"  I  answered,  ''consider  it  done.  I 
am  already  there." 

"Do  you  not  remember,"  he  went  on, "that  a 
little  while  ago  you  expressed  a  wish  that  it  might 
have  been  your  lot  to  live  say  200  years  later  than 
you  did,  so  as  to  share  and  experience  the  glory 
your  race  would  have  attained  by  that  time?  Well 
you  are  in  effect  now  there,  and  while  you  shall 
never  experience  it  in  your  own  person,  you  shall 


164:  The  Lunarian  Professor 

have  a  close  glimpse  of  it  and  be  able  to  compare 
your  anticipation  with  the  reality. 

"We  are  now  celebrating  January  1,  2100.  As 
you  look  around,  you  see  very  much  that  is  un- 
familiar and  miss  many  things  you  used  to  see. 
Take  a  map  of  the  world  and  examine  it.  You  will 
find  only  three  general  governments  on  earth.  First 
is  the  **  Great  Union  of  Free  States,  which  you 
have  heard  of,  but  now  comprising  all  America, 
the  Pacific  Islands,  Japan,  Australia,  New  Zea- 
land, South  Africa,  The  West  Indies,  Ireland  and 
Great  Britain,  Denmark,  Norway,  Sw^eden,  New 
Guinea  and  the  Philippines.  Thus  you  see  the  prin- 
cipal change  in  this  government  during  the  century 
consists  in  the  full  annexation  of  all  the  South 
American  States  north  of  Chili  and  Argentine,  and 
the  Annexation  of  England.  Scotland  and  Wales 
and  the  Scandinavian  states.  The  language  of  this 
great  empire  is  almost  exclusively  English,  which 
however,  has  been  greatly  corrupted,  some  say,  or 
enriched  according  to  others,  by  the  incorporation 
of  a  large  number  of  foreign  words,  mostly  Spanish, 
due  to  the  intimate  relations  between  the  English 
speaking  peoples  and  those  who  used  the  Spanish 
and  Portuguese.  South  America  has  been  settled 
and  cultivated  and  is  the  most  productive  county 
on  earth;  a  fairy  land,  a  paradise.  Nothing  can 
compare  with  it  except  some  of  the  finest  portions 
of  the  Sahara  desert,  which  has  been  developed  by 
the  French;  and  some  of  the  East  India  Islands. 

Next  is  the  Russo-Asiatic  empire  that  comprises 
Russia  m  Europe  and  all  Asia  except  Arabia.  It 
is  styled  the  *Russasia.'    The  government  is  a  lim- 


The  Prohlein  of  Over  Population  165 

ited  monarchy,  very  much  like  that  of  Great  Brit- 
ain  in  vour   day.     The  Russians   in   Europe   and 
Siberia  are  represented  by  a  parliament,  which  is, 
the   supreme   legislative   authority   for   the    entire 
empire      The  Asiatic  States  are  governed  by  gov- 
ernors appointed  by  the  emperor  at  St.  Petersburg 
and  most  of  them  have  local  legislatures  that  reg- 
ulate their  local  affairs.     All  China  and  parts  of 
India,   Persia    and   Tartary,   and   Afghanistan   are 
divided  into  convenient  sized  states  possessing  this 
local  autonomy.    All  of  this  territory  is  being  de- 
veloped  by   the   combined   enterprise  of   the   Rus- 
sians and  the  Chinese,  the  latter  scarcely  second  to 
the  former.    Mongolia  and  Mantchooria  have  been 
supplied  with  railroads  and  settled  by  both  Chinese 
and  Russians.     The  Chinese  have  also  migrated  m 
great  numbers  into  Tartary  and  settled  up  what 
x.sed  to  be  the  western  end  of  the  Chinese  empire. 
They  have  even  settled  in  great  numbers  m  Russia 
and  in  western  Asia.     A  great  change  <=ame  over 
the  Chinese  after  their  war  with  Japan  m  1894— &. 
They  perceived  that  they  were  beaten  by  western 
methods,  and  they  suddenly  conceived  a  respect  for 
the  ways  of  the  foreign  devils  as  extreme  as  their 
contempt  for  them  had  been  before.     They  had  al- 
ways been  on  good  terms  with  the  Russians  while 
they  disliked  the  English,  French  and  Americans. 
Having   determined  to   adopt  western  ways,  they 
selected  the  Russians  for  their  instructors  and  wel- 
comed their  capital  and  enterprise  in  the  introduc- 
tion of  railways,  opening  mines,  improving  their 
water   ways,   introducing   western   machinery   and 
manufactures.    When  the  Russians  in  order  to  pro- 


166  TIlc  Lunarian  Professor 

tect  their  interests  began  a  military  occupation  of 
the  country,  they  were  not  opposed,  but  rather 
welcomed  by  the  progressive  party.  The  Chinese 
were  not  a  military  people,  and  were  really  in  need 
of  a  coalition  that  would  enable  them  to  resist  the 
aggressions  of  the  nations  of  western  Europe,  and 
the  Japanese.  The  remodeling  of  Chinese  institu- 
tions under  the  tutelage  of  the  Russians  advanced 
rapidly.  Probably  the  most  radical  and  important 
innovation  was  the  introduction  of  the  Russian 
alphabet  and  the  phonetic  spelling  of  the  Chinese 
language  by  its  use.  This  enabled  the  Chinese 
youth  to  learn  their  own  language  much  more  easi- 
ly, and  it  led  directly  to  the  study  of  the  Russian 
which  became  very  necessary  to  a  large  extent,  on 
account  of  the  intimate  intercourse  between  the 
two  people,  and  on  account  of  the  new  ideas,  pro- 
cesses and  things,  the  names  of  which  were  Russian 
without  Chinese  equivalents.  This  finally  led  to  the 
universal  use  of  Russian  by  the  educated  Chinese. 

After  the  formal  annexation  of  China,  the  Rus- 
sian became  the  official  language,  and  the  Chinese 
language  has  gradually  fallen  into  disuse  and  is 
now  almost  extinct.  The  Chinese  say  of  their 
ancient  tongue  and  the  bug  marks  and  turkey 
tracks  that  constituted  its  written  expression,  "we 
were  little  children  when  we  used  that  language." 

The  Russian  has  also  to  a  great  extent  super- 
seded the  Tartar,  Turkish,  Persian  and  other 
tongues  current  in  Central  Asia.  In  doing  this, 
however,  it  has  become  considerably  corrupted  it- 
self. 


The  Probfeiii  of  Over  Popiilaiioii  167 

The  third  great  empire  comprises  all  the  terri- 
tory not  included  in  the  other  two,  and  embraces 
all  of  Continental  Europe  except  Russia  and  the 
Scandinavian  States,  and  all  of  Africa  except  that 
part  south  of  the  10th  parallel  of  S.  Lat.  and  Arabia. 
It  is  called  the  Euro-Afric  Confederacy.  Tremend- 
ous activity  has  been  displayed  by  the  Europeans 
in  the  settlement  and  improvement  of  Africa  dur- 
ing the  past  two  centuries.  The  whole  continent 
has  been  gridironed  with  railroads,  all  of  it  has 
been  civilized  and  the  most  unpromising  part — the 
Sahara  desert  has  been  made  a  vast  garden. 

The  French  have  been  most  active  in  the  north- 
ern part,  the  Italians  in  the  eastern  part,  the 
Portuguese  and  Germans  in  the  central  por- 
tions, the  English  in  the  southern.  The  Congo 
and  German  States  being  open  to  free  trade, 
they  came  to  be  frequented  by  merchants  from  all 
Europe  and  these  were  soon  followed  by  permanent 
settlers.  After  a  time  these  people  became  tired  of 
being  governed  from  Europe,  and  set  up  for  them- 
selves, declaring  themselves  independent,  much  as 
the  United  States  did  in  1776.  But  in  this  case 
there  was  no  opposition  for  the  principle  of  free 
intercourse  and  unrestricted  trade  having  been 
firmly  established,  the  mother  countries  did  not 
care  to  superintend  the  internal  affairs  of  the  young 
states,  and  readily  consented  to  their  independence. 
But  this  independence  proved  to  be  the  forerunner 
of  a  more  extensive  union  namely  the  Euro-Afric 
Confederacy.  It  was  the  last  to  be  formed  of  the 
three  great  empires  that  now  cover  the  world.  The 
states  comprising  it  are  mostly  republics.     But  a 


168  The  Lunarian  Professor 

few  in  middle  Africa,  Guinea  and  the  Sondan,  are 
limited  monarchies.  The  native  races  of  Africa 
are  rapidly  being  displaced  by  the  Europeans  and 
will  totally  disappear  in  a  few  generations  as  the 
North  American  Indians  did  in  your  day.  A  large 
migration  of  Negroes  took  place  from  the  United 
States  to  Africa  during  the  20th  century,  but  they 
did  not  thrive,  and  the  race  is  vastly  reduced  both 
in  Africa  and  America." 

''That  is  strange,"  said  I,  ''for  in  ray  day  the 
negroes  were  very  numerous  in  the  southern  states 
— a  majority  in  some  places — and  the  question  how 
they  were  to  be  disposed  of  constituted  one  of  the 
questions  of  state  of  that  period." 

"True,"  he  replied,  "but  up  to  that  time  there 
had  been  no  very  severe  competition  for  the  means 
of  living.  But  it  became  more  and  more  difficult 
from  that  time  on  to  make  a  living,  and  wherever 
there  is  strong  competition  between  men,  the  strong 
positive,  vigorous  and  hard,  are  sure  to  crow^l  the 
softer  and  weaker  out,  and  take  the  prize  they  are 
struggling  for.  In  your  day  the  negroes  were  gen- 
erally content,  in  fact  were  compelled  to  be  con- 
tent, with  such  humble  employments  as  the  whites 
did  not  care  to  engage  in  because  there  ivas  enough 
of  a  more  ambitious  sort  to  employ  them.  But 
when  the  whites  found  it  necessary  to  compete  with 
the  negroes  for  the  work  they  had  before  monopo- 
lized, they  easily  boat  them.  The  defeat  of  men 
in  the  struggle  for  life  affects  them  in  two  ways; 
it  discourages,  worries  and  exhausts  them  mental- 
ly; and  it  destroys  their  vigor  throusfh  want  and 
starvation,  physically.     The  latter  of  these  effects 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  1G9 

tells  at  once  in  shortening  the  existence  of  the 
present  generation,  and  both  of  them  tell  on  the 
general  force  and  vigor,  the  deterioration  of  which 
is  seen  in  the  reduced  numbers  and  virility  of  the 
succeeding  generations.  "Wild  animals  newly  do- 
mesticated, fail  to  breed  through  mental  strain  and 
worry.  The  same  is  true  of  savages  when  the  men- 
tal burdens  of  civilization  are  too  suddenly  laid 
upon  them,  and  the  same  principle  holds  in  civil 
life  when  from  any  cause  the  burden  of  life  be- 
comes too  heavy — as,  to  the  poor  man  when  he 
struggles  against  odds  for  bread  for  his  family, 
and  to  the  rich  when  he  struggles  doubtfully  for 
the  superfluities  required  by  fashion.  The  negro 
race  is  not  extinct  by  any  means  even  in  the  Unit- 
ed States,  but  its  extinction  is  only  a  question  of 
comparatively  short  time  easily  estimated  from  the 
advance  in  that  direction  already  made." 

**But  it  seems  to  me,"  said  I,  "that  there  can 
no  longer  be  such  a  desperate  struggle  for  existence 
since  the  means  of  livelihood  are  within  the  reach 
of  all,  and  the  exertion  required  has  been  so  much 
lessened  by  the  state's  care  of  the  young  etc. 

''The  means  of  mere  existence,"  he  said,  *'are, 
in  most  of  the  states  of  the  ''Great  Union,"  within 
the  reach  of  all,  and  no  one  need  go  hungry  or 
naked.  If  he  is  able  to  work,  the  state  will  give 
him  employment  if  no  one  else  will,  and  if  he  is 
not  able  he  will  be  cared  for  anyhow.  But  the 
style  in  which  a  man  lives  depends  altogether  on 
his  ambition  and  ability.  If  his  ability  is  equal  to 
his  ambition,  he  obtains  what  he  wants  and  is  hap 
py  and  contented;  unless,  as  often  happens  his  am- 


170  Tlic  Lunarian  Professor 

bition  grows  by  what  it  feeds  on  and  excites  him 
to  fresh  exertions  by  a  new  allurement  after  every 
success.  And  so  the  wearing  struggle  may  go  on 
forever.  People  are  mimics  and  none  of  them  more 
so  than  the  negroes.  In  imitating  a  stronger  race 
they  give  out  and  gradually  succumb.  While  they 
were  slaves  they  were  free  from  this  competition, 
and  rapidly  increased.  The  African  tribes  were 
also  free  from  it.  But  both  have  now  been  expos- 
ed to  it  for  six  generations  and  it  has  told  on  them 
heavily. ' ' 

*'It  would  appear  then  that  competition  and 
selection  go  on  under  the  present  conditions  of  life 
almost  as  much  as  ever,  for  the  law  must  apply  to 
the  weaker  whites  as  well  as  to  the  negroes." 

**So  it  does,  and  always  must,  as  long  as  men 
are  competent  to  discriminate  betAveen  the  costly 
and  the  cheap,  and  continue  to  prefer  the  former, 
to  the  latter." 

"The  reason  for  such  preference,"  I  infer, 
''must  be  that  more  enjoyment  of  life  is  found  in 
the  possession  of  the  more  costly  things.  Is  that 
your  view? 

''It  does  not  follow  at  all,"  he  replied.  *' Costly 
things  give  a  fictitious  enjoyment  in  anticipation 
while  they  are  being  pursued,  but  after  they  are 
obtained  they  give  no  more  enjoyment  than  if  they 
had  been  cheap.  The  possession  of  many  things 
that  have  cost  great  worry  and  exertion  frecjuently 
leads  to  nothing  more  than  a  perception  of  their 
vanity,  and  the  uncovering  of  a  new  perspective 
of  something  bright  and  equally  illusory  beyond. 
From    time    immemorial    your    philosophers    have 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  171 

sounded  the  praises  of  contentment.  Contentment 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  happiness,  and  it  is 
little  to  the  purpose  to  ask  a  man  to  be  happy  un- 
less the  suggestion  is  backed  up  by  the  conditions 
of  his  environment.  When  people  have  absolutely 
nothing  better  to  look  forward  to,  they  can  almost 
always  settle  down  to  a  comparative  degree  of 
contentment  with  what  they  have.  But  with  an 
environment  constantly  showing  chances  of  pre- 
ferment, wealth,  distinction,  etc.,  and  examples  of 
the  attainment  of  these  things  by  others,  content- 
ment is  constantly  being  unsettled  and  happiness 
always  deferred  to  the  future.  A  guest  taking  his 
dinner  'out'  will  reserve  part  of  his  appetite  for 
the  unseen,  but  commonly  expected,  desert  of  pud- 
ding and  pie,  but  if  he  is  informed  that  he  ''sees 
his  dinner"  before  him,  he  will  make  himself  quite 
satisfied  without  the  desert. 

The  fact  is,  the  absolute  contentment  or  hap- 
piness that  your  poets  dream  for  you,  and  your 
priests  sell  to  you  in  their  heavens  and  nirvanas, 
is  absolute  satisfaction  with  whatever  is.  It  can 
only  come  to  an  instinct  in  perfect  harmony  with 
its  environment.  People  can  never  be  perfectly 
happy  except  in  a  finished  unchangeable  state  of 
existence.  They  may  approach  it  under  conditions 
in  which  change  is  very  slow  and  slight." 

"Is  our  race  likely  to  attain  it  or  anything  like 
it  on  earth?" 

"Things  on  earth  to-day  look  far  more  unsettled 
than  ever  before,  and  yet  they  are  getting  into  a 
shape  that  promises  peace  and  permanence  in  the 
not  very  distant  future.     When  the  earth  gets  as 


172  Tkc  Lunarian  Professor 

full  of  people  as  it  will  hold  and  they  learn  how 
to  live  by  moderate  exertion  and  above  the  fear 
of  failure  and  want,  the  millenium  w^ill  have  come 
to  the  extent  that  it  can  come." 

*'AYell  from  what  you  said  a  while  ago,  I  sup- 
pose the  world  must  already  be  as  full  of  people 
as  it  ought  to  be,  and  if  everything  is  in  equili- 
brium, the  milennium  ought  to  have  already  dawn- 
ed. But  you  have  not  told  me  whether  this  equili- 
brium has  been  made  secure  and  stable.  For  evi- 
dently if  means  have  not  been  found  to  keep  the 
population  uniform  and  steady  at  its  maximum 
limit  of  comfort,  even  a  perfect  equilibrium  would 
soon  be  disturbed  by  its  increase  and  the  millen- 
nium set  back  again. 

You  told  me  the  stirpieulturists  in  the  20th 
century  proposed  to  accomplish  the  two  objects  of 
restricting  the  race  and  at  the  same  time  improving 
it,  by  select  limitation.  How  did  the  plan  suc- 
ceed ?" 

**It  did  not  succeed  at  all,"  he  replied.  "The 
population  increased  more  rapidly  than  before. 
A  state  of  society  something  like  a  corrupt  and 
clandestine  polygamy  supervened.  The  tone  of 
society  instead  of  being  elevated  was  distinctive- 
ly lowered.  Thus  both  of  the  objects  they  so 
hopefuly  set  out  to  accomplish,  disastrously  fail- 
ed. When  it  was  definitely  given  up  by  the  pro- 
gressive party  that  they  were  defeated  and  oblig- 
ed to  confess  they  were  on  the  wrong  track  there 
was  a  fearful  revulsion  and  upheaval  of  society, 
as  there  alwaj^s  is  when  opinion  is  forced  to  fly 
from  one  extreme  to  another.     Many  persons  felt 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  1*^3 

they    had     been    wronged — treated    as    criminals 
when  they  were  only  unfortunates  . 

* '  The  danger  from  this  class  was  now  immin- 
ent, and  they  had  the  sympathy  of  many  in  the 
better  walks  of  life.  But  the  time  soon  rolled 
round  that  drove  people  to  think  of  nothing  but 
themselves.  But  this  was  one  of  those  deliberate 
movements  that  nature  seems  to  delight  in  deal- 
ing out  to  us.  She  dangles  it  over  us  like  the 
sword  of  Damocles.  There  was  time  to  think; 
before  the  thread  snapped,  if  there  was  only  the 
wit.  It  was  a  time  of  common  danger,  and  there 
was  no  inclination  nor  profit  in  recrimmations  be- 
tween the  parties.  In  the  presence  of  an  appal- 
ling calamity  they  were  both  awed.  They  no 
longer  contended  with  each  other,  they  were  both 
at  their  wits  ends,  and  in  fright  they  rushed  into 
each  others  presence  to  consult  not  to  fight;  and 
trembled  alike  at  the  disaster  that  overwhelmed 
them  both;  like  tigers  slinking  into  the  presence 
of  their  human  enemies  when  threatened  by  a 
common  danger;  as  an  earth-quake. 

All  admitted,  the  disappointment  and  failure 
were  complete. 

**It  seems  to  me  that  might  have  been  forseen," 
said  I,—* 'what  did  they  do  next?" 

**They  were  in  a  great  quandary,  and  did  not 
know  what  to  do,  many  wild  propositions  were  of- 
fered and  discussed.  The  pessimists  although  as 
largely  interested  as  anybody  in  the  success  of  any 
plan  aiming  at  the  public  welfare,  were  really  pleas- 
ed at  the  failure  of  this,  because  it  fulfilled  their  evil 
predictions.     They  now  said  there  was  nothing  to 


174  The  Lunarian  Professor 

be  done  but  to  return  to  the  ancient  plan  of  nature 
in  which  every  one  looked  after  himself  and  his 
children. 

If  one  failed,  it  was  nature's  sign  that  he  was 
not  wanted,  and  he  had  no  business  to  have  chil- 
dren. But  the  optimists  declared  it  to  be  impossi- 
ble to  return  to  the  barbarous  conditions  that  pre- 
vailed in  ancient  times  among  savages.  Nature, 
said  they,  has  evolved  civilization  and  altruism, 
and  these  are  therefore  as  natural  as  barbarism. 
But  nature  preserves  a  certain  congruity  of  rela- 
tionship between  things,  that  we  cannot  easily  set 
aside,  and  so  if  we  are  going  backward  in  regard 
to  the  care  of  our  young  we  shall  lose  the  advan- 
tages that  we  have  gained  in  the  improved  quality 
of  the  citizens,  we  have  made  out  of  them.  For  if 
we  throw  all  the  responsibility  on  the  parents, 
while  we  cannot  depend  on  a  reduction  in  the  num- 
ber of  the  children,  we  may  be  sure  of  a  deteriora- 
tion in  their  bringing  up  and  education.  If  we  go 
back  to  barbarism  we  must  take  all  that  barbarism 
imposes.  The  human  race  they  said  was  born  to 
luck.  Whenever  it  got  into  a  tight  place,  some 
lucky  turn  of  fortune's  wheel  always  supplied  its 
need  and  brought  it  out  of  its  troubles,  and  they 
avowed  their  faith  that  something  would  yet  turn 
up  to  tide  the  race  over  the  present  crisis.  In  the 
midst  of  these  discussions,  a  great  discovery  was 
made  or  accidentally  stumbled  upon  that  gave  con- 
firmation to  this  hopeful  philosophy,  and  relieved 
the  fears  of  those  philosophers  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  taking  the  destiny  of  the  race  very  much 
to  heart  and  who   felt  more  or  less  resi^onsibility 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  175 

for  its  future.     That  was  a  discovery  of  nature's 
secret    of    the    determination  of  sex.     It  enabled 
people  to  control  the  sex  of  their  children,  a  pow- 
er that  had  been  ardently  wished  for  ever  since  the 
days  of  Adam  and  scientifically  sought   after,   at 
least  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Aristotle.     They 
thought    that    in    this    ''option    of    sex,"    as    they 
styled  it,  they  at  last  possessed  the  infinitely  im- 
port-ant power  of  the  control  of  population.     They 
had    seen    before    this,    that    no    restriction    could 
succeed,  not  founded  on  the  support  of  all.     All 
discussion  in  this  direction  was  brought  to  a  sud- 
den   termination,    by    this    timely    discovery.      All 
felt  as  if  the  great  problem  was  solved  in  the  most 
acceptable   manner,   not   only   in    accordance    with 
refined   sentiment,   but   with  the   pressing   require- 
ments of  society,  because  this  vital  condition  that 
so  intimately   concerns  us   all  is  taken  up  by  the 
state    and    administered    for    the    benefit    of    the 
whole  race. 

In  your  day  you  doubtless  remember  that  gen- 
erally boys  were  in  greater  request  and  more  wel- 
come by  parents  than  girls.  And  there  continued 
to  be  such  a  feeling  until  quite  lately— for  no  very 
good  reason,  except  the  habit  of  heredity— since 
men  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  had  any  advan- 
tage over  women  for  the  last  100  years.  At  any 
rate  this  prejudice  assisted  the  state  in  the  policy 
it  adopted  of  reducing  the  proportion  of  females, 
and  within  two  generations  the  census  showed  a 
reduction  of  fifty  per  cent  in  the  number  of  females 
while  the  total  population  remained  the  same  with- 
out increase.     This  result  was  peculiarly  gratify- 


176  The  Lunarian  Professor 

ing  to  the  political  economists  and  philosophers, 
for  as  they  declared  the  state  had  now  complete 
control  of  the  population  and  could  on  a  tolerably 
short  notice  increase  or  diminish  it  as  the  com- 
fort  of  the  race  might  demand." 

I  interrupted  the  Professor  here  to  express  with 
some  pardonable  enthusiasm  my  congratulations 
that  this  vital  question  had  been  so  successfully 
and  thoroughly  met.  I  said  I  always  had  confi- 
dence in  my  race  and  now  more  than  ever.  I 
felt  proud  of  the  honor  of  being  an  humble  mem- 
ber of  it;  and  more  to  the  same  effect;  to  which 
he  listened  with  some  impatience  and  then  pro- 
ceeded. 

**  There  were  some  results  that  were  not  antici- 
pated, that  followed  from  the  practical  operation 
of  the  ''option  of  sex."  One  was  the  very  rapid 
elevation,  almost  defication  of  women.  As  there 
was  now  but  one  woman  to  three  men  her  value 
and  importance  rose  in  the  inverse  ratio;  and  it 
became  the  habit  to  ssiy  that  women  were  worth 
three  times  as  much  as  men.  They  were  in  fact 
worth  a  good  deal  more  than  that,  for  they  soon 
perceived  that  they  held  the  key  of  power  and 
the  destiny  of  the  race  and  were  able  to  construct 
the  conditions  of  life  to  suit  their  own  whims  and 
caprices.  They  became  in  fact  the  ruling  sex. 
They  demanded  for  themselves  and  easily  obtained 
all  the  easy  and  profitable  positions  in  business  and 
official  life,  and  remanded  men  to  those  least  de- 
sirable. The  wholesome  civil  service  principles  that 
had  become  pretty  well  settled  in  the  law,  thought, 
and  practice  of  the  country  were  now  habitually 


The  Prohlem.  of  Over  Population         '17'^ 

evaded  or  openly  set  aside  in  favor  of  the  sex. 
Nothing  they  asked  for  was  denied  them  and  hard- 
ly anything  was  good  enough  for  them.  In  your 
day  the  women  in  America  were  extravagantly 
petted  and  coddled,  but  the  attention  and  rever- 
ence they  received  then  was  nothing  compared  with 
the  adulation  and  servility  that  has  of  late  been 
rendered  to  them.  Such  a  condition  of  things  could 
not  fail  to  encourage  tryanny  and  arrogance,  and 
to  create  them  where  they  had  not  been  before. 
Sentiment  and  favoritism  became  the  controlling 
forces  and  business  principles  were  ignored. 

There  were  three  candidates  for  every  woman's 
hand,  two  of  whom  were  bound  to  be  be  disap- 
pointed, and  so  one-half  the  population — two-thirds 
of  the  masculine  part — were  doomed  to  a  life  of 
single  misery.  They  did  not  accept  the  situation 
with  fortitude  or  resignation.  There  was  no  end 
to  quarreling  and  personal  antagonisms  and  viol- 
ence between  rivals,  and  there  arose  what  there 
had  not  been  for  several  generations,  and  that  was 
a  ** dangerous  class."  It  became  unsafe  for  mar- 
ried people  of  either  sex  to  appear  on  the  streets 
unguarded.  The  ''social  evil"  that  in  your  day 
was  so  sore  a  question  had  long  since  under  the 
conditions  of  universal  matrimony,  died  out,  and 
had  practically  ceased  for  a  century  and  a  half, 
now  came  again  into  existence  in  a  more  virulent 
form  than  ever.  All  classes  felt  the  relaxation  of 
the  former  restraints,  and  immorality  became 
frightfully  prevalent.  Divorce  which  had  become 
almost  obsolete,  now  came  to  be  an  every  day 
occurrence,    not    often,    however,    upon    the    com- 


178  The  Lunarian  Professor 

plaint  of  the  comparatively  helpless  husband,  but 
upon  that  of  the  fickle  wife  who  had  succumb- 
ed to  the  superior  attractions  of  a  newer  affin- 
ity. Divorce  was  now  practically  in  the  hands 
of  the  wife,  and  she  dismissed  her  husband  when 
he  failed  to  please  her,  or  w^hen  a  more  eligible 
mate  presented  himself.  All  women  of  course  were 
not  like  that,  but  they  all  had  the  power  to  be,  and 
a  frightfully  large  proportion  of  them  were." 

''The  wise  men  of  our  race,"  said  I,  ** especial- 
ly those  of  ancient  times  have  generally  regarded 
women  as  being  not  merely  inferior  to  men  physi- 
cally and  mentally,  but  as  being  essentially  de- 
praved and  incapable  of  being  good  except  under 
the  stimulation  and  wise  and  pious  discipline  and 
example  of  men.  Does  the  state  of  society  you 
have  described  to  me  bear  out  this  opinion?  It 
seems  that  the  women  have  broken  loose  from  the 
wholesome  restraints  that  were  imposed  on  them 
in  the  former  constitution  of  society  in  which  men 
were  supreme;  and  like  a  runaway  team  they  are 
about  to  smash  the  wagon  and  dash  out  their  own 
brains." 

**No,"  he  replied,  ''the  state  of  affairs  I  have 
described  does  not  at  all  confirm  the  opinion  of  the 
old  blockheads  you  call  your  wise  men.  If  they 
had  been  really  wise  they  would  have  known  that 
both  women  and  men  are  created,  formed,  moulded 
and  finished  by  their  environment.  Now  woman 
constitutes  a  part  of  the  environment  of  man  and 
man  constitutes  a  part,  but  in  old  times  he  consti- 
tuted a  relatively  much  larger  part  of  the  environ- 
ment of  woman.     So  it  might  be  said,  that  if  man 


The  Problem  of  Over  Population  ITO 

was  better  than  woman,  it  was  because  her  influ- 
ence on  him  was  better  or  at  least  less  harmful 
than  his  influence  on  her. 

But  the  fact  is  that  under  equal  conditions  the 
influence  that  each  exerts  on  the  other  is  equal, 
and  they  are  mutually  benefitted.  The  nearest  to 
a  golden  age  your  race  has  ever  come  was  during 
the  one  hundred  years  from  the  middle  of  the  20th 
to  the  middle  of  the  21st  century,  and  that  is  the 
period  of  the  most  complete  equality  of  the  sexes 
in  all  respects — numbers,  liberty,  similarity  of  oc- 
cupations and  equal  duties  and  responsibilities, 
and  the  total  ignoring  and  rejection  of  the  notion 
of  any  difference  of  *  spheres'  for  the  activities  of 
the  two.  The  reciprocal  and  essentially  exclusive 
functions  involved  are  peculiar  to  each,  but  these 
do  not  essentially,  and  at  the  present,  do  not  real- 
ly interfere  in  any  of  the  active  employments  peo- 
ple choose  to   engage  in." 

*' Nursing  the  children  is  essentially  the  woman's 
business  is  it  not?"  I  inquired. 

"Not  at  all,"  he  answered.  *' Mammary  glands 
belong  to  the  male  as  well  as  the  female." 

''Functionless  ones,"  said  I. 

"Only  functionless,"  he  replied,  "because  they 
are  not  used.  In  your  day  there  were  occasional 
cases  of  well  developed  male  mammae  and  profes- 
sional male  wet  nurses,  now  they  are  common  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  there  are  as  many  female  as  male 
nurses.  There  are  and  always  were  women  who 
could  not  nurse  their  children,  and  these  are  more 
numerous  now  than  ever.  It  is  simply  because 
there  are  other  things  they  prefer  to  do,  and  so  the 


180  The  Lunarian  Professor 

accommodating  function  suppresses  itself  just  as 
it  did  in  the  male  because  he  for  ages  suppressed 
its  use.  So  you  see  that  even  in  nursing  and  rear- 
ing the  children  there  is  no  exclusive  female 
'' sphere '*  any  more  than  a  male  "sphere."  In 
the  golden  age  I  have  just  spoken  of  there  was 
greater  harmony  and  happiness  than  ever  before, 
one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  which  was  the 
almost  perfect  equality  of  the  sexes.  But  the  ter- 
mination of  this  golden  age  and  the  beginning  of 
the  social  anarchy  that  commenced  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  21st  century  was  traceable  chiefly  to  the 
disparity  in  numbers  between  the  sexes  brought 
about  b}^  the  operation  of  the  ''Option  of  Sex."  If 
we  are  to  charge  it  to  the  corrupt  influence  of  one 
sex  on  the  other  it  was  the  corrupt  assault  of  the 
unavoidably  unmarried  of  the  male  sex  on  the  in- 
stitution of  Vv^edlock.  If  the  women  were  willful 
arrogant  and  naughty,  it  was  only  because  there 
were  men  about  them  in  the  proportion  of  three  to 
one — for  which  they  were  not  to  blame — nor  the 
men  either,  but  the  limited  capacity  of  this  globe, 
and  nobody  was  to  blame  for  that.  Thus  whatever 
they  are  or  do  in  either  sex  is  traceable  to  their 
environment." 

''Well,"  said  I,  "since  there  has  been  such  a 
failure,  I  am  glad  after  all  that  my  day  was  ended 
long  before  these  evil  times  came.  But  what  is 
to  become  of  the  race  now?  Will  they  discover  a 
way  to  hold  their  own?" 

"There  never  was,"  said  he,  "a  lack  of  wise 
doctors  amongst  men  who  were  always  ready  with 
a  sure  cure  for  the  ills  that  beset  the  race.     Some 


Tlie  Problem  of  Over  Population  181 

of  them  now  proposed  as  a  remedy  for  the  social 
maladies  a  plan  of  life  that  was  not  new  nor  origi- 
nal, but  which  differed  as  far  as  possible  from  the 
hereditary  notions  of  the  western  nations.  This 
was  nothing  less  than  polyandry  or  the  plurality 
of  husbands.  They  said,  let  every  woman  have 
three  husbands  and  harmony  and  peace  will  be  re- 
stored, and  vice  be  deprived  of  excuse.  They  said 
this  was  no  experiment,  but  had  been  practiced 
successfully  amongst  some  of  the  eastern  nations 
from  time  immemorial.  They  referred  to  the  case 
of  the  Ladaks  a  highly  civilized,  steady  and  re- 
ligious people  of  the  Buddhist  faith,  who  inhabit 
the  lofty  and  circumscribed  valley  at  the  head 
waters  of  the  Indus.  The  place  will  support  only 
so  many  people.  If  too  many  were  born  they  could 
not  emigrate  to  a  lower  country  on  account  of  the 
oppression  of  the  heavier  air.  For  a  converse  rea- 
son no  immigrants  ever  attempt  to  settle  there. 
But  the  population  is  kept  uniform  and  steady  by 
the  simple  plan  of  giving  each  wife  three  husbands. 
This  has  been  successful  for  a  thousand  years  on  a 
small  scale  and  there  seemed  no  reason  why  it 
would  not  work  on  a  large  scale.  But  this  scheme 
was  promptly  and  emphatically  rejected  by  the 
women  of  influence  and  authority,  the  moment  it 
was  proposed.  They  asserted  there  was  no  civilized 
relationship  except  Monogamy.  That  alone  brought 
equality  of  the  sexes  and  equality  alone  stood  be- 
tween the  race  and  barbarism. 

It  was  true  that  polyandry  was  already  practiced 
surreptitiously  to  a  certain  extent  in  America,  but 
it  was  the  disreputable  exception  and  they  did  not 


182  The   Lunarian   Professor 

propose  to  make  it  the  honorable  rule.  Thcj^  de- 
nounced the  plan  as  being  scarcely  one  remove 
from  the  ''social  evil"  itself.  Polygamy,  they  said, 
is  natural,  made  so  by  immemorial  usage.  The 
race  was  brought  up  on  that  and  is  built  with  re- 
ference to  it.  But  polyandry,  No!  nothing  in  na- 
ture so  repulsive  and  revolting.    That  settled  it. 


CHAPTER  X. 
The  Third  Sex. 

*'It  is  a  painful  tale  you  have  told  me,  Profes- 
sor," said  I,  "I  sincerely  hope  you  have  got  a 
pleasanter  sequel  to  take  off  its  sting.  Well,  our 
race  has  always  had  its  ups  and  downs.  The  one 
seems  always  to  breed  the  other.  So  as  it  has  re- 
ceived a  check  now,  that  must  be  a  prophecy  of 
better  times  ahead.  After  all  I  shall  be  disappoint- 
ed if  human  wit  has  been  so  completely  baffled  by 
that  problem  of  population  that  it  has  failed  to 
find  a  way  for  its  regulation  without  violation  of 
the  generous  instincts  of  humanity." 

''Your  confidence  in  human  Avit  is  commendable 
from  a  patriotic  point  of  view,"  returned  the  Pro- 
fessor, "but  for  this  particular  occasion  it  is  not 
entirely  justified.  The  fact  is  that  not  many  years 
ago  your  race  in  North  America  and  Europe  had 
so  crowded  upon  its  conditions  of  comfortable  ex- 
istence that  it  was  in  imminent  danger  of  a  dis- 


The  Third  Sex  183 

astrous,  if  not  total  collapse.  The  efforts  then 
made  to  prevent  this,  resulted  almost  in  the  disor- 
ganization of  society  to  such  an  extent  that  a  col- 
lapse from  this  cause  was  seriously  threatened. 
Your  race  and  nation  have  been  saved  from  such 
collapse  and  a  repetition  of  one  of  its  numerous  re- 
lapses into  barbarism,  not,  however,  by  human  wit 
this  time,  but  by  the  wisdom  and  generosity  of  the 
race  I  have  the  honor  to  represent.'^ 

**What!  the  Lunarians? 

**The  same.  Our  people  saw  the  straits  to  which 
the  human  family  was  reduced,  and  willing  that  it 
should  be  spared  the  distress  that  they  had  been 
compelled  to  undergo  before  the  discovery  of  the 
means  of  protection  against  themselves,  they  sent 
messengers  to  earth  with  the  necessary  facts  and 
instructions." 

**I  am  amazed,  and  gratified,"  said  I,  ''for  this 
signal  proof  that  benevolence  is  not  confined  to  any 
one  world  or  race;  but  I  am  impatient  to  know 
what  this  wonderful  and  essential  secret  is,  that 
defied  the  penetration  of  the  wise  of  my  own  race." 

**Our  belief,"  said  he,  ''is  that  it  would  not  al- 
ways have  eluded  them,  but  they  would  have  failed 
to  apprehend  it  in  time  to  save  the  race  from  pres- 
ent disaster.  The  Lunarians  have  always  taken 
a  deep  interest  in  Mundane  affairs,  and  have  given 
many  hints  to  man,  some  of  which  have  been  acted 
upon  with  good  results.  But  many  others  could 
not  be  properly  acted  on  or  even  fairly  understood, 
because  the  education  of  your  race  had  not  pre- 
pared them  for  it.  We  are  often  tempted  to  ex- 
claim  "what    a   stupid   race.''     But   then   we   re- 


184  Tlic   Lunarian    Professor 

member  how  very  young  and  immature  you  arc, 
and  we  remember  too  that  once  we  were  in  a  like 
state  of  infancy  ourselves,  and  so  we  exercise  char- 
ity." 

**But  what  was  the  secret  you  told  us? — I  am 
anxious  to  learn  at  once,  lest  some  accident  shall 
forever  bar  my  opportunity." 

''"Well  the  secret  is  the  simplest  thing  in  the 
w^orld,  and  your  scientists  have  been  reproaching 
themselves  all  over  the  earth  for  not  having  dis- 
covered it  themselves.  In  fact,  as  they  say,  they 
did  discover  all  around  it  when  the}^  lit  upon  the 
"Option  of  Sex."  It  is  simply  the  conditions  for 
the  production  at  will  of  the  Third  Sex." 

''The  Third  Sex!"  I  echoed  in  amazement. 

"Yes  the  Third  Sex.  I  prefer  that  name,  though 
some  have  called  it  the  neuter  sex,  others  name  it 
the  Double  Sex,  or  the  Epicene  or  Common  Sex, 
others  the  Hermes- Aphrodite.  In  some  respects  it 
is  all  of  these,  or  either,  or  neither.  But  it  is  st 
any  rate  Third.  I  am  not  going  to  give  you  the 
recipe,"  said  he,  "for  if  I  do,  when  you  leave  here, 
and  now  and  go  back  to  the  Nineteenth  Centurj^ 
you  will  be  sure  to  let  out  the  secret  prematurely 
by  two  hundred  years.  But  I  can  say  that  the  de- 
velopment of  the  third  sex  is  in  reality  no  develop- 
ment at  all,  but  an  arrest  of  development,  at  a 
particular  prenatal  period.  If  you  are  informed 
in  the  science  of  embryology,  you  know  that  in  the 
earliest  stage  of  the  embryos  of  all  sexual  animals, 
the  sex  is  not  determined,  and  at  that  stage  there 
is  nothing  to  distinguish  whether  the  coming  indi- 
vidual is  to  be  male  or  female.    It  possesses  possibili- 


The  Third  Sex  185 

ties  of  either  and  therefore  the  germs  of  both.  At 
a  second  stage  the  elements  of  the  essential  organs 
of  both  sexes  are  developed  in  each  individual  and 
then  the  individual  is  both  male  and  female,  but 
not  fully  matured  or  developed.  At  the  third  stage 
the  organs  distinguishing  one  of  the  sexes  are 
carried  forward  to  functional  perfection,  while 
those  pertaining  to  the  other,  are  not  developed 
any  further,  and  in  some  cases  are  partly  undone 
again.  Now  if  the  developement  of  the  embryonic 
sexual  organs  be  arrested  during  the  second  stage 
of  grov/th  or  before  it,  the  individual  will  be  neith- 
er male  nor  female,  but  w^ill  belong  to  the  third 
sex.  The  manner  in  which  this  arrest  can  be  ac- 
complished is  the  secret  we  imparted  to  you  20 
years  ago,  and  by  means  of  which  the  important 
problem  of  the  control  of  population  can  be  solved 
by  you  as  it  was  long  ago  done  by  us." 

**Then  you  have  the  three  sexes  in  the  moon?" 

**We  have  had  them  for  many  ages,  in  fact, 
we  would  not  know  how  to  exist  if  we  had  but 
two." 

**It  is  a  wonder  to  me  how  you  ever  could  have 
fallen  upon  so  wonderful  an  arcanum — that  nature 
seems  to  be  carefully  hiding  from  us." 

**  Nature  dropped  the  hint  in  this  as  in  so  many 
others  of  our  discoveries.  There  were  occasional 
examples  of  the  third  sex  produced  by  nature  and 
born  into  life,  as  there  have  been  in  the  case  of 
the  human  race  as  you  must  know.  These  examples 
excited  curiosity,  which  led  to  the  discovery,  that 
they  w^ere  due  to  arrested  development.  Further 
investigation  and  experiment  showed  this  arrest  to 


186  The  Lunarian   Professor 

be  due  to  deprivation  of  a  certain  class  of  food,  or 
rather  of  food  in  a  certain  dynamic  condition,  that 
is,  under  certain  electric  tensions.  This  condition 
again  depends  on  the  molecular  structure  of  the 
food  elements.  "When  the  food  is  deprived  of  the 
constituent  *plastidules  required  for  the  nourish- 
ment and  development  of  the  tissues  composing  the 
embryo  organs  of  sex;  these  tissues  do  not  mature. 
And  since  the  emasculation  or  invalidation  of  the 
food  does  not  extend  to,  or  affect  the  process  of 
assimilation  of  the  same  nourishment  by  the  other 
tissues,  such  as  muscle,  brain,  nerve,  bone,  etc.,  the 
individual  is  built  up  to  a  symmetrically  sexless 
maturity.  And  the  development  of  sex  is  said  to  be 
arrested. 

If  your  people  had  been  as  wise  as  the  bees 
they  would  have  known  how  to  produce  the  third 
sex  simply  as  the  bees  do  by  supplying  the  appro- 
priate sort  of  nutriment;  for  they,  from  the  same 
sort  of  an  ^gg,  produce  either  a  queen,  a  drone  or  a 
worker,  the  latter  being  of  the  neuter  or  third 
sex ;  simply  by  variations  in  the  food  and  treatment. 
It  is  said,  that  itwas  by  observing  and  follow- 
ing such  hints  as  these  that  our  ancestors  learned 
how  to  produce  the  same  results  the  bees  have 
accomplished." 

"While  the  Professor  was  making  this  explana- 
tion, the  question  arose  in  my  mind  whether  this 
discovery,  surprising  as  it  was,  was  sufficient  to 
rectify  the  ills  that  our  race  had  encountered. 
Would  there  not  be  some  unforseen   drawback  as 


*  Plastidulc  Is  tlie  lowest,  or  unit  molecule    of    proto- 
Ijlasiii. 


The  Third  Sex  187 

there  had  proved  to  be  to  the  other  schemes,  that 
would  neutralize  the  anticipated  benefits,  or  work 
another  disaster  as  great  as  the  one  it  was  intend- 
ed to  cure.  Was  the  third  sex  in  itself  a  desirable 
or  happy  kind  of  condition  to  have.  The  contem- 
plation of  this  subject,  at  first  repulsive;  when 
viewed  philosophically  becomes  exceedingly  inter- 
esting as  one  of  the  curious  flights  of  nature.  It 
is  true  that  the  specimens  of  these  people  she  has 
furnished  us  on  earth,  we  have  commonly  regard- 
ed as  unhappy  monstrosities. — But  that  is  no  doubt 
due  to  ignorance  and  prejudice,  and  to  the  anomal- 
ous conditions  into  which  they  are  born.  I  ex- 
pressed myself  somewhat  in  accordance  with  these 
reflections,  after  which  the  Professor  with  some 
hesitation  proceeded. 

''In  your  day  the  family  was  spoken  of  as  the 
basis  and  the  bond  of  society;  and  by  the  family 
was  meant  a  father  and  mother  and  a  brood  of 
children,  all  living  together  and  working  and  car- 
ing for  each  other.  The  family  Avas  the  laboratory 
for  the  creation  and  preparation  of  the  citizens  of 
the  state.  As  an  instrument  for  the  education  and 
development  of  the  young  citizens  it  was  discover- 
ed to  be,  in  civil  life,  inefficient  and  costly  very 
unequal  in  its  results  and  entailing  an  unequal  and 
unjust  distribution  of  its  burdens.  The  state  gradu- 
ally assumed  one  after  another  of  these  former 
family  duties  and  burdens  in  the  rearing  and  de- 
velopment of  the  young,  and  in  doing  so,  gradually 
disintegrated  the  family  until  there  was  nothing- 
left  of  it  except  a  pair  of  people,  a  man  and  a 
woman.     But  in  this  the  state  only  consummated  a 


ISS  The  Lunarian    Professor 

process  that  had  been  begun  generations  before  by 
the  invention  of  labor  saving  machiner5^  The  fam- 
ily of  your  day  was  already  a  very  much  dv.'indled 
affair,  compared  with  that  of  ancient  times.  Then 
the  members  of  the  family  made  for  themselves 
their  clothing  and  everything  they  required  and 
they  constituted  a  military  body  of  which  the 
father  was  the  chief.  But  when  machinery  and 
gunpowder  were  invented,  labor  and  employment, 
in  both  peace  and  war,  became  specialized,  and  in 
the  division  of  labor  that  followed,  families  were 
gradually  separated  so  as  to  use  the  labor  of  their 
individual  components  to  greater  advantage  and 
new  combinations  were  formed  that  crossed  and 
obliterated  family  lines. 

When  the  families  gave  up  their  children  to 
the  state  to  be  brought  up,  it  was  a  continuation 
of  the  same  process  in  accordance  with  the  eternal 
law  of  economy,  and  because  the  machinery  of  the 
state  for  the  care  of  the  young  was  so  much  better 
and  cheaper  than  that  of  the  family,  that  the  latter 
could  no  longer  compete.  When  this  was  accom- 
plished the  family  had  lost  every  function  that 
had  ever  made  it  a  nesessary  or  important  subdi- 
vision of  society. 

In  former  times  the  state  of  celibacy  was  re- 
garded as  censurable  and  blameworthy,  because  the 
unmarried  by  failing  to  raise  and  provide  for  a 
family  of  children  were  considered  as  shirking  out 
of  a  duty  they  owed  to  society.  But  when  it  was 
no  longer  the  business  of  individuals  to  provide  for 
the  growing  citizens,  it  became  a  matter  of  total 
indifference  to  the  general  public  whether  one  was 


The  Third  Sex  1$9 

married  or  not.  It  became  unimportant  to  the 
public  to  know  even  of  what  sex  any  individual 
might  be,  and  the  ancient  laws  that  required  the 
sex  to  be  advertised  by  their  clothes,  vrere  repealed 
and  everybody  was  allowed  to  dress  according  to 
the  demands  of  their  business  or  their  fancy.  All 
artificial  distinctions  of  sex  such  as  employment, 
civil  rights  and  dress  were  abolished,  and  the  per- 
sonal pronouns  and  titles  of  address  that  recogniz- 
ed sex  were  of  necessity  dropped  out  of  the  lan- 
guages. These  things  have  already  transpired  in 
your  country  and  in  all  the  more  advanced  coun- 
tries of  the  world  and  this  has  prepared  the  people 
to  view  the  introduction  of  the  third  sex  with 
philosophical  interest  and  appreciation,  instead  of 
vulgar  and  unreasoning  prejudice.  You  must  make 
allowance  for  the  advance  people  have  m.ade  since 
your  day  in  education  and  the  comprehensiveness 
of  their  views.  The  third  sex  was  looked  upon  in 
your  day  as  a  monstrosity,  because  it  was  rare. 
Did  they  regard  a  seedless  orange  or  lemon  or 
grape  as  a  monstrosity?  If  you  had  ever  seen  a 
horse  with  three  toes  on  each  foot  you  would  have 
called  him  a  monstrosity,  but  the  time  was  as  you 
know,  when  the  horse  commonly  had  three  toes 
and  the  monstrosity  was  the  animal  with  only  one. 
such  as  you  regarded  in  your  day  as  a  perfect 
model  of  beauty  and  utility. 

Your  race  will  not  regard  the  third  sex  with 
aversion  or  depreciation  when  they  understand  its 
relations  and  experience-  its  value." 

''Please  tell  me,"  said  I,  ''what  the  relations 
of  this   sex  to   the   others  will  be.     I  suppose   of 


190  The   Lunarian    Professor 

course  it  Avill  be  subordinate  to  the  others,  especial- 
ly the  male." 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "your  experience  in  this 
matter  will  closely  follow  ours.  As  it  is  in  Luna, 
so  it  is  beginning  to  be  on  earth.  You  are  greatly 
mistaken  in  supposing  our  sex  to  be  subordinate 
to  another." 

At  the  expression  "our  sex,"  I  involutarily 
gave  the  Professor  a  surprised  glance. 

"Then  your  affiliations  are  with  that  sex?" 

"I  have  indeed  that  honor." 

I  was  greatly  astonished  at  this  avowal  and  was 
greatly  mortified  to  reflect  that  I  had  unwittingly 
said  things  that  must  have  hurt  his  feelings,  al- 
though he  gave  no  sign  of  being  in  the  least  of- 
fended. I  began  an  embarrassed  apology,  but  he 
silenced  me  by  a  deprecatory  wave  of  his  right 
joker.  He  appeared  amused  rather  than  offended 
and  evidently  excused  my  unlucky  observations  as 
due  to  the  ignorance  and  inexperience  of  the  human 
race;  which  indeed,  they  were.  I  am  now  in  doubt 
about  the  propriety  of  these  masculine  personal 
pronouns  that  I  have  applied  when  speaking  of  him 
but  I  shall  continue  to  use  them  for  I  do  not  know 
what  sort  to  substitute  for  them;  certainly  none 
of  less  dignity  would  seem  appropriate  to  so  digni- 
fied and  noble  a  personage. 

"In  the  moon,"  the  Professor  went  on,  "there 
is  perfect  equality  between  all  individuals,  regard- 
less of  the  sex.  But  the  third  sex  is  numerically 
far  the  largest  and  in  case  of  disagreement  would 
easily  dominate  the  other  two.  But  there  is  and 
has  been  from  time  immemorial  perfect  harmony 


Tlic  Third  Sex  101 

as  betvreen  the  sexes,  their  functions  being  of 
necessity  complemental  and  in  no  way  antagonistic. 
The  most  responsible  places  in  the  state,  and  the 
leadership  in  education,  in  religion,  in  public  works, 
engineering  and  architecture  as  well  as  almost  all 
the  common  occupations,  such  as  manufacturing 
and  storing  goods,  agriculture  etc.,  are  in  the  hands 
of  the  third  sex.  They  are  preeminently  people  of 
affairs,  and  for  most  occupations  are  decidedly 
superior  to  the  other  sexes,  because  they  are  less 
liable  to  be  distracted  from  their  chosen  occupations. 

The  males  and  females  generally  marry  and  then 
their  first  duties  are  to  each  other,  otherwise  they 
are  employed  like  the  third  sex  people. 

Married  people  are  desired  to  conform  to  the 
policy  of  the  State  Bureau  of  Population  in 
regard  to  the  distinctions  required  by  it.  Other- 
wise they  are  under  no  restriction  or  obligation. 
The  population  is  thus  kept  uniform  or  increased 
or  diminished  in  an  almost  exact  and  scientific  man- 
ner. As  I  have  already  informed  you,  all  Lunarians 
are  by  nature  industrious  and  they  take  the  keenest 
sort  of  pleasure  in  their  work.  Nevertheless  they 
also  play  and  amuse  themselves,  and  devote  much 
time  to  intellectual  occupations.  They  have  numer- 
ous societies  and  clubs,  and  the  third  sex  people  in 
particular  are  organized  into  associations  for  said 
purposes.  So  are  the  others  also,  but  their  club 
life  is  more  or  less  interrupted  and  broken  up  by 
their  connubial  relations  and  duties.  The  third 
sex  people  are  distinguished  for  their  personal 
friendships  which  are  very  close  intimate  and  ten- 
der and  of  life  long  constancy.    These  friendships 


19,2  The   Lunarian    Professor 

i'ounded  on  compatibility  of  character,  similarity  of 
tastes  and  pursuits  the  subtile  attractions  of  reci- 
procal intellectual  and  spiritual  qualities,  we  re- 
gard as  finer,  more  elevated,  more  noble,  more  ex- 
quisite and  more  absorbing  than  the  unions  formed 
on  the  basis  of  sexual  attractions,  and  they  are 
notably  more  permanent." 

''Then,''  said  I,  *'you  have  no  jealousies  of  the 
other  sexes — no  envy?" 

**^liy  should  we  have  when  it  is  plain  we  are 
as  happy — we  think  happier — than  they?  We  would 
not  change  places  with  them,  any  sooner  than  you 
would  with  a  fish,  because  it  can  dive  into  depths 
you  cannot  penetrate,  or  a  bird,  because  it  can 
soar  where  you  cannot.  You  know  you  would  lose 
by  the  exchange.  In  a  society  where  there  are  no 
artificial  distinctions  on  account  of  sex  it  is  not 
possible  to  find  any  one  who  would  willingly  ex- 
change with  another.  ^ATiy  should  not  a  non-mar- 
rying sex  be  happy?  Do  you  not  remember  that 
one  of  the  great  teachers  of  earth  declared  that  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  they  neither  marry  nor  are 
given  in  marriage?  Certainly  the  third  sex  is  in  a 
better  condition  to  comply  with  this  celestial  reg- 
iiltaion  than  either  of  the  others.  The  same  great 
teacher  was  apparently  so  impressed  with  the 
superior  conditions  for  happiness  possessed  by  the 
third  sex  that  he  recommended  to  those  of  his  fol- 
lowers who  were  able  to  receive  it,  to  attach  them- 
selves to  that  sex  by  artificial  means*,  and  not  a 


*  The  Professor  probably  referred  to    the    instruction 
found  in  Matt.  19:  12. 


The  Third  Sex  li)3 

few  of  them  have  from  time  to  time  attempted  to 
do  so.  But  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  the 
artificial  and  the  natural,  the  spurious  and  the 
genuine.  Those  who  are  of  the  third  sex  by  natural 
development,  are  formed  symmetrically;  the  brain 
and  the  mind  depending  on  it,  with  its  desires  and 
aversions  are  formed  in  unison  and  harmony  with 
the  other  bodily  parts  and  organs. 

The  samie  causes  that  suppress  the  formation  of 
the  latter  also  prevent  the  development  of  the  cor- 
responding pieces  of  brain  and  mind.  There  is 
therefore  no  clash  between  mind  and  body,  no  men- 
tal instincts  that  the  body  is  physically  disqualified 
from  executing.  The  artificial  imitation  on  the 
other  hand  is  a  mutilate.  His  symmetry  and  bal- 
ance are  destroyed  because  he  retains  a  sexual 
brain  and  mind.  He  is  out  of  harmony  with  him- 
self, necessarily  unhappy,  and  often  a  wretch. 

Intellectually  the  third  sex  is  superior  to  the 
others     It  is  less  emotional,  more  cool,  dispassion- 
ate, patient  and  rational.     It  is  more  gentle  and 
sympathetic,  yet  more  firm  in  its  conclusions  and 
persistent  in  its  purposes.    In  size  it  is  between  the 
other  sexes   the  male   being  the  largest-as   with 
you— and  from  the  same   cause,  polygamy,  which 
as  in  your  case,  was  practiced  by  our  ancestors. 
But  our  sex  is  physically  finer,  stronger,  more  wiry 
and  tough,  more  skillful  in  all  the  arts  of  life  and 
twenty-five  per  cent  longer  lived  than  the  others. 
In  short  we  possess  all  the  good  qualities  of  the 
others   in   an   increased   degree,     as   if  the  mater- 
ial  that  nature  saved  by  the  suppression  of  sex- 


194  The  Lunarian  Professor 

ual  qualities,  she  used  for  the  purpose  of  re-infore- 
ing  and  augmenting  the  remaining  ones. 

You  are  I  think  now  enabled  to  judge  what 
your  third  sex  is  like,  that  is  just  now  being  in- 
troduced as  an  active  factor  in  human  affairs. 
Your  race  is  now  for  the  first  time  in  its  history, 
able  in  a  perfectly  scientific  manner,  to  defend  it- 
self against  its  own  encroachments.  Your  long 
looked  for  millennium  dates  from  this  very  moment 
— the  practical  introduction  of  this  new  factor. 
The  disorders  of  the  past  half  century  that  seemed 
to  many  to  mark  the  beginning  of  a  chaotic  an- 
archy in  reality  mark  its  termination.  From  this 
time  farward,  law  and  liberty  will  gradually  grow 
together  until,  at  a  period  long  before  the  end  of 
this  millennium,  they  will  precisely  coincide. 
Things  will  not  be  perfect  at  first.  Men  will  learn 
better  every  day  how  to  live  and  every  day  will 
subjugate  more  and  more  of  the  energies  and  ma- 
terials of  nature  to  their  own  ends.  The  millen- 
nium that  begins  now  will  be  succeeded  by  ninety- 
nine  more  before  your  race  will  have  passed  its 
high  tide  and  begun  its  final  ebb,'' 


XI. 

The  Millennium. 

The  Professor  here  begun  to  roll  up  his  profile. 
He  was  evidently  preparing  to  leave,  biit  as  long  as 


the  Millennium  195 

he  had  been  with  me,  and  it  seemed  as  if  it  were 
daj^s,  I  was  more  loath  than  ever  to  part  with  him. 
My  dread  of  the  separation  rapidly  grew  into  a 
veritable  panic,  and  I  became  so  desperate  as  to  be- 
seech him,  if  he  must  go,  to  take  me  with  him.  He 
was  evidently  much  amused,  and  I  thought  gratified 
as  well,  but  explained  that  it  would  be  impossible 
at  that  time,  as  his  storage  capacity  for  compressed 
air  was  only  sufficient  for  one,  and  his  car  was  in 
fact  hardly  suited  to  carry  double. 

''Then,"  said  I,  ''give  me  a  few  moments  longer 
if  you  possibly  can.  I  do  so  wish  to  know  some- 
thing of  our  posterity  ten  millenniums  ahead — 
twenty — a  hundred.  But  no  I  am  selfish — you  are 
doubtless  suffering  now  from  your  long  stay  and 
I  ought  not  to  ask  anything  more." 

"Say  no  more,"  he  said,  "I  will  stay  a  few 
moments  longer.  I  am  not  seriously  inconvenienced 
as  yet.  But  I  cannot  give  you  continuous  history 
as  that  will  take  too  long,  but  I  will  post  you  on 
a  few  prominent  points  that  will  interest  you. 

One  thing  you  will  consider  remarkable  in  the 
beginning  of  the  first  millennium,  is  a  growing 
disregard  for  the  accumulation  of  great  wealth. 
The  day  of  millionaires  passed  away  before  the 
close  of  the  20th  century.  Legislation  looking  to 
the  reduction  of  great  estates  and  the  prevention 
of  such  overgrown  accumulations  in  the  future, 
was  enacted  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  But 
the  spirit  of  greed  was  not  outgrown  until  the 
creation  of  wealth  became  so  easy  and  under  such 
control  by  the  state  that  more  than  enough  for 
comfort  and  ease  was  placed  at  the  command  of 


196  The  Lunarian    Professor 

ever}'  one.  No  one  was  obliged  to  pay  for  any- 
thing, more  than  it  cost,  because  the  state  vroulcl 
furnish  all  that  was  necessary  on  those  terms,  if 
no  one  else  would.  Speculative  profits  were  abol- 
ished and  the  cost  of  an  article  was  made  up  of 
wages  only — the  wage  of  the  man  in  getting  the 
raw  material,  the  wage  of  the  factors  and  the  ma- 
chinery in  its  fabrication,  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion, the  wage  of  the  salesman  etc.,  all  added  to- 
gether. The  accumulation  of  excessive  wealth  was 
possible  only  when  the  speculator  got  hold  of 
something  it  was  necessary  for  other  people  to 
have,  and  who  then  made  them  pay  for  it  much 
more  than  it  cost  him.  This  was  all  stopped  as  I 
said,  before  the  close  of  the  20th  century.  But  it 
was  reserved  to  the  beginning  of  the  millennium  to 
produce  wealth  in  such  abundance  that  it  was  not 
possible  for  anybody  to  have  a  single  thing  that 
it  was  essential  for  anybody  else  to  have. 

The  material  means  of  comfort  and  happiness 
exist  on  the  earth  as  abundantly  as  the  air  for 
breathing.  The  education  of  the  human  race  con- 
sists in  their  learning  how  to  take  and  use  them. 
Having  learned  this,  the  abundance  of  wealth  is 
its  security  against  the  monopoly  of  the  greedy, 
and  so  your  millennium  begins  with  available 
wealth  so  plentiful,  that  its  surplus  accumulation 
has  no  longer  a  sane  object,  and  there  is  no  more 
reason  in  a  man  hoarding  it  than  in  his  eating  the 
surplus  food  on  the  dinner  table  after  he  has  had 
enough. 

In  your  day  if  all  the  wealth  of  the  world  had 
been  equally  divided  among  its  inhabitants  there 


The  2Iillcniuum  19'^ 


would  hardly  have  been  enough  for  eaeh  person, 
to  maintain  him  one  year.     The  people  lived  from 
hand  to  mouth,  and  if  the  earth  had  failed  to  bring 
forth  her  bounty  in  erops  for  one  year    hair  the 
population  would  have  perished.     Now  ^f  «™  f"d 
rain  should  fail  to  mature    the    crops,    the    giant 
laboratories  of  artificial  food  can  soon  supply  tne 
deficiency.    The  tendency  of  the  times  is  to  depend 
less  and  less  on  the  cultivation  of  the  natural  foods 
that  are  liable  to  the  chances  of  unfavorable  wind 
and  weather,  and  to  rely  on  the  art  ficial  products 
the  creation  of  which  is  a  matter  of  scientific  cer- 
tainty and  accurary.  . 

Let  us  now  put  ourselves  forward  again;  this 
time  one  hundred  millenniums,  and  look  into  the 
past  as  we  have  done  before.     We  shall  see  that 
before  the  middle  of  the  first  millennium  the  prin- 
cipal articles   of    food    are    artificial    productions 
identically  like  the  natural  foods  formerly  used 
sS  ::  milk,  flour,  meat,  butter,  f-^ts,  vegetaWes 
etc      In  addition  to  these  many  other  foods  were 
invented   similar   and   equivalent  to   these  natural 
productions.     Later  on  the  artificial  products  came 
more  and  more  to  consist  of  the  proximate  prin- 
ciples and  condensed  forms  of  food,  fats,  oils,  sugar, 
and  starch,   gum,   gluten,   albumen,  Abrin,   casein, 
gelatine  etc.,  directly  from  minerals,  especial  y  coal 
or  from  cheap  vegetation  such   as  weeds  that  in 
your  day  were  destroyed   as  worthless,  sea  weed 
etc.,  also  from  sea  animals.     Nothing  came  amiss 
chemistry  could  produce  rich  and  nourishing  food 
from  what  in  your  day  were  the  most  unpromis- 
ing materials,  and  at  a  merely  nominal  cost  too,  be- 


198  The  Lunarian  Professor 

cause  power  was  furnished  by  the  sun  as  I  have 
explained  to  you.  The  constant  tendency  of  chem- 
ical discovery  was  toward  the  production  of  foods 
in  their  purity,  unmixed  with  the  bulky  residuum 
that  goes  with  natural  foods  and  that  in  the  pro- 
cess of  assimilation  has  to  be  rejected.  As  the 
foods  thus  became  more  condensed  and  pure  a  few 
spoons  full  became  the  daily  food  of  a  man,  the 
pleasures  of  the  table  became  less  keen  and  pro- 
tracted and  gradually  fell  out  of  fashion.  Other 
methods  of  recreation  were  more  cultivated,  such 
as  music,  oratory,  the  lyceum,  theater,  scientific 
lectures  and  experiments,  games,  etc.  In  many 
other  respects  the  habits  and  fashions  of  life  chang- 
ed during  the  first  millennium.  The  practice  of 
walking  was  almost  discontinued;  flying  machines 
having  come  into  universal  use.  They  reached 
perfection  and  were  so  inexpensive  to  operate,  that 
they  became  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  everybody. 
Gentlemen  went  to  their  business,  ladies  went  shop- 
ping, children  Aveut  to  school,  with  their  flyers,  as 
they  formerly  used  to  do  to  a  less  universal  extent, 
with  their  bicycles. 

The  changes  that  took  place  in  the  habits  of 
the  people  in  respect  to  eating,  walking  and  other 
things,  reacted  upon  their  physical  development, 
slowly  and  imperceptibly,  however,  unless  com- 
parisons were  made  between  people  of  several  gen- 
erations apart.  The  tendency  as  you  know,  is,  to- 
ward the  suppression  of  organs  not  habitually  us- 
ed. Use  and  habit  keep  all  organs  in  good  running 
order  and  develop  them  in  size  and  health,  where- 
as disuse  allows  them  to  become  shriveled  and  re- 


The  Millennium  109 

duced,  and  if  it  is  persisted  in  for  too  many  gen- 
erations the  organ  will  be  reduced  to  an  unrecog- 
nizable functionless  remnant  or  disappear  alto- 
gether. All  animals  including  man  have  lost  or- 
gans by  ceasing  to  use  them.  Very  many,  as  the 
ox,  sheep,  dog,  deer  etc.,  have  lost  toes,  many  have 
lost  part  of  their  intestines,  some  have  lost  a  part 
or  the  whole  of  one  lung.  Most  vertebrates  includ- 
ing man  were  derived  from  ancestors  who  once 
possessed— but  lost— an  eye  on  the  back  of  the 
head.  The  whales  and  snakes  have  lost  their  legs 
and  feet  in  whole  or  in  part. 

You  will  not  be  surprised  therefore  to  be  told 
that  the  man  of  the  second  millennium  began  to 
be  perceptibly  changed  from  the  one  you  knew  in 
the  19th  century.  But  when  we  come  to  the  tenth 
millennium  the  change  is  astonishing.  Let  me  de- 
scribe him. 

His  average  height  is  eight  inches  less.  His  legs 
are  short  and  spindling,  his  feet  are  small,  and 
his  toes  reduced  to  small  nubbins  or  mere  warts. 
He  has  no  teeth  and  the  males  and  third  sex  people 
have  not  hair  enough  to  make  a  scalp  lock,  even 
among  the  young,  and  it  all  disappears  before  mid- 
dle age.  The  females  however  still  maintain 
enough  for  a  few  bangs  and  spit  curls.  The  ex- 
ternal ears  are  reduced  to  a  low  rim  of  cartilage 
around  the  opening,  about  one  inch  in  diameter. 
The  lower  part  of  the  trunk  is  small  and  weak. 
The  upper  part  containing  the  heart  and  lungs  is, 
however,  very  well  developed.  The  arms  and  hands 
are  well  formed  strong  and  symmetrical.  The 
head  is  very  large  indicating  large  mental  power. 


200  The  Lunarian   Professor 

All  these  deviations  from  the  average  man  of  your 
day  became  more  pronounced  with  time,  and  if 
you  could  see  a  man  of  the  one  hundredth  millen- 
nium you  would  have  to  inquire  what  it  was.  His 
stature  now  is  but  four  feet,  twelve  inches  of 
which  is  head,  eighteen  inches  trunk,  and  the  other 
eighteen  inches  legs.  His  chest  is  \qvj  broad,  and 
very  thick  from  front  to  back.  His  arms  are  stout 
and  long  enough  to  allow  him  to  reach  to  his 
knees  while  standing.  They  are  much  larger  and 
stronger  than  his  legs.  He  is  bald  as  an  orange 
from  birth.  He  has  an  immense  mouth  which  he 
uses  much  in  singing,  laughing  and  speaking.  He 
has  not  the  vestige  of  an  external  ear  nor  any 
hair  on  any  part  of  the  body.  No  teeth  of  course 
and  no  sign  of  a  toe.  The  foot  is  also  much 
shortened  and  his  walk  is  neither  graceful  nor  vig- 
orous. Foot  ball  is  no  longer  his  best  hold,  al- 
though his  ancestor  in  your  day  may  have  belong- 
ed to  the  Sophomore  foot  ball  eleven,  of  the  Minne- 
sota University.  It  would  probobly  astonish  you 
to  see  him  eat.  If  not,  it  would  be  because  you 
did  not  know  what  he  was  doing.  His  food  is  a 
liquid,  an  artificial  preparation  digested  and  as- 
similated ready  for  absorption  by  the  tissues.  He 
does  not  take  it  in  at  the  mouth,  but  by  an  orifice 
leading  into  the  abdomen.  This  orifice  is  in  the 
position  of  the  navel,  and  is  the  opening  of  the 
umbilical  cord  through  the  outer  wall  of  the  ab- 
domen to  its  connection  with  the  vascular  system 
inside. 

In    ancient    times    the    umbilical    cord    through 
which  the  embrvo  received  its  nourishment  became 


The  MUlennium  201 

pinched  off  on  the  outside  after  birth,  while  the 
part  of  it  that  remained  inside  of  the  body  cavity 
became  reduced  to  a  mere  string,  a  useless  rudi- 
ment. But  now  that  inside  piece  is  kept  in  use 
from  birth,  the  child  being  fed  in  the  same  way 
after  as  before  birth.  This  opening  by  hereditary 
habit  has  developed  wonderful  changes  for  which, 
however,  the  long  ages  of  use  have  furnished  am- 
ple time  for  adjustment  into  a  perfect  adaptation 
of  the  parts  and  functions  concerned.  But  really 
the  changes  are  by  no  means  so  radical  as  they 
seem  at  first  view.  The  change  made  in  the  mode 
of  life  of  a  new  infant  is  in  reality  the  same  in 
effect  now  that  it  was  in  your  day.  The  essential 
operation  in  both  cases  is  the  introduction  of 
nourishment  into  the  blood  and  it  is  accomplished 
in  both  cases  by  osmosis.  The  history  of  this 
evolution  is  interesting,  but  I  can  give  you  only 
a  bare  outline  of  it. 

As  the  business  of  the  world  came  to  be  done 
almost  exclusively  by  machinery  directed  by  men's 
brains,  there  was  but  little  use  for  muscular  ex- 
ertion, especiallj^  of  the  legs  and  body.  The  use 
for  legs  in  locomotion  w^as  also  superseded  by  arti- 
ficial modes  of  conveyance.  Every  road  and  street 
in  the  w^orld  was  as  smooth  and  clean  as  a  parlor 
floor.  On  these  were  unlimited  facilities  for  inex- 
pensive transportation,  public  and  private,  the 
power  being  electric.  Besides  these  were  the  fly- 
ers, also  public  and  private.  The  life  became 
almost  exclusively  a  sitting  life,  even  when  in  mo- 
tion, sedentary  in  the  most  literal  sense.  This  was, 
however,  accompanied  by  the  most  intense  activity 


202  Tlic  Lunarian  Professor 

of  the  brain.  These  conditions  were  decidedly 
antagonistical  to  the  old  system  of  the  nourish- 
ment of  the  body  by  the  stomach  and  intestines, 
because  that  system  had  been  developed  in  con- 
nection with  an  active  muscular  body,  and  could 
be  kept  in  good  health  only  by  vigorous  muscular 
activity.  Formerly  four-fifths  of  the  blood  went 
to  support  digestion  and  muscular  activity,  and 
one-fifth  went  to  the  brain  to  support  the  mind. 
Increasing  mental  activity  diverted  more  and  more 
of  the  circulation  towards  the  brain,  until  now  it 
consumes  three-fifths,  muscular  work  takes  not 
quite  two-fifths  and  digestion  and  assimilation  al- 
most none.  The  result  of  the  changes  that  con- 
stantly pressed  in  this  direction,  was  that  the  first 
millennium  was  an  age  of  dyspepsia.  The  increas- 
ing disability  of  the  stomach  for  digestion,  encour- 
aged the  use  of  digested  foods,  and  these  by  ex- 
cusing the  stomach  from  doing  its  proper  work,  in- 
creased its  disability.  Children  at  first  were  usual- 
ly born  with  good  stomachs,  but  these  by  middle 
life  or  before,  commonly  degenerated  into  instru- 
ments of  miser^^  Finally  they  would  not  even 
tolerate  digested  food  and  it  became  ncccessary  to 
convey  food  within  by  some  other  means.  Any 
method  by  which  the  nutritious  matter  properly 
digested  can  be  introduced  into  the  blood  wilJ 
support  life.  It  became  necessary  to  adopt  hypo- 
dermic injections  and  other  similar  expedients.  As 
this  sort  of  treatment  had  to  be  applied  earlier  and 
earlier  in  life  as  time  went  on,  even  in  some  cases 
in  childhood  and  infancy,  they  finally  hit  on  the 
plan  of  using  the  ancient  natural  entrance  of  the 


The  Millennium  203 

umbilicus  and  not  allowing  it  to  close  at  all  dur- 
ing life.  In  this  way  the  ancient  system  of  sup- 
port and  nutrition  for  the  body  through  the  stom- 
ach has  been  entirely  subverted.  The  chemical 
processes  of  digestion,  selection  and  assimilation  of 
food  are  all  done  outside  of  the  body,  by  artificial 
processes,  and  the  cavity  of  the  body  is  no  longer 
filled  with  a  series  of  brewing  vats,  soap  factories, 
gas  works  and  receptacles  for  refuse  filth  and 
foul  water.  For  we  may  truly  say  that  digestion 
consists  of  processes  of  fermentation  of  several 
different  kinds  and  saponification  or  soap  making. 
Little  or  nothing  that  is  now  taken  into  the  body 
requires  to  be  excreted  and  the  only  excretory  or- 
gans are  the  skin  and  lungs,  for  moisture  and  car- 
bonic dioxide.  This  radical  change  was  not  all 
effected  at  once,  but  was  extended  over  many  gen- 
erations, and  was  not  fully  consummated  till  the 
second  millennium  was  well  spent.  But  before  that 
one  was  finished,  the  atrophy  of  the  digestive  func- 
tions was  so  far  complete  that  cases  of  possible 
reversion  to  them  were  extremely  rare.  The  people 
of  the  present  time  look  back  with  amusement, 
commiseration  and  disgust  upon  the  walking  labor- 
atories that  constituted  their  ancestors." 

''I  think,"  said  I,  ''that  if  the  people  of  my 
day  could  see  them  the  amusement  would  be 
mutual. ' ' 

''Probably  it  would,"  he  replied,  "but  if  you 
should  come  to  compare  real  advantages,  I  am  of 
the  opinion  they  would  be  entitled  to  laugh  the 
loudest.  They  have  decidedly  the  advantage  of 
you  in  the  simplicity  of  their  construction  and  in 


204:  The  Lunarian  Professor 

their  reduced  liability  to  get  out  of  order.  An 
autopsj^  of  this  latter  day  man  would  reveal  a 
little  shriveled  up  bit  of  parchment  in  the  place 
where  the  stomach  used  to  be,  and  another  in  the 
place  where  the  bladder  was,  a  handful  of  shoe 
strings  in  the  place  of  the  intestines,  the  total  re- 
duced in  length  at  least  one-half;  some  little  fleshy 
nodules  like  so  many  beans  and  peas  and  hickory 
nuts  to  stand  for  the  kidneys,  the  pancreas,  the 
spleen  and  that  ancient  terror,  the  liver.  It  is 
strange  that  after  these  organs  are  thus  discarded 
and  atrophied,  nature  continues  to  perpetuate  the 
remembrance  of  them  by  reproducing  in  every  in- 
dividual that  is  born,  these  odd  and  grim  cari- 
catures, like  a  miserly  old  woman  that  carefully 
hoards  her  cellar  full  of  old  tin  cans  and  broken 
jugs,  bottles  and  dishes — of  no  use  to  anybody. — 
But  this  is  nature's  way.  Even  in  your  day  your 
scientists  pointed  out  numerous  remnants  of  play- 
ed-out organs  that  your  race  then  had  about  them, 
such  as  the  coracoid  bone,  the  tail  bones,  the  ver- 
miform appendix,  the  ear  muscles,  the  pineal 
gland  and  many  more.  But  now  there  are  to  be 
added,  this  fresh  batch.  They  will  be  constantly 
reduced  in  size,  one  generation  after  another,  but 
your  race  will  hardly  exist  long  enough  to  get  rid 
of  them  entirely:  but  they  may  congratulate  them- 
selves that  they  have  ended  their  mischief  and 
are  no  longer  functional. 

There  are  also  notable  changes  in  the  skeleton 
of  the  present  man.  He  no  longer  has  33  segments 
or  vertebrae  in  his  back  bone  as  folks  had  in  your 
day,  but  only  23.     The  seven  neck  and  twelve  dor- 


The  Millennium  205 

sal  segments  remain  the  same,  but  the  five  lumbar 
vertebrae  are  reduced  to  two,  the  five  sacral  and 
four  tail  bones  are  reduced  to  one  each,  much  di- 
minished in  size,  the  tail  a  mere  button.  So  he  is 
much  shortened  from  the  diaphragm  down.*' 

*' Professor,"  said  I,  "I  confess  I  am  disap- 
pointed in  this  man  of  the  latter  days.  It  is  doubt- 
less true  as  you  say  that  he  has  been  greatly  im- 
proved by  getting  rid  of  his  troublesome  insides. 
I  was  somewhat  shocked  when  you  first  told  me  of 
it,  but  on  reflection  I  have  no  doubt,  that  although 
it  seemed  at  first  so  strange  and  unnatural,  it 
was  all  for  the  best.  But  his  stature — I  cannot 
get  over  that.  He  is  nothing  but  a  big  headed 
spindle  shanked  dwarf.  Our  dreamers  and  prophets 
of  the  nineteenth  century  always  pictured  the  com- 
ing man  to  us  as  a  Hercules  with  brawny  limbs 
and  muscles  of  steel;  he  was  never  to  be  less  than 
six  feet  high,  and  he  was  to  be  as  graceful  as  he 
was  powerful  and  all  that.  He  was  to  be  intellect- 
ual, too,  of  course;  a  Daniel  Webster  in  brain. 
And  they  seemed  to  have  the  experience  of  the 
race  in  their  favor  in  this  prognostication,  because 
it  does  not  appear  that  the  average  stature  of  the 
race  diminished  any,  but  probably  increased,  dur- 
ing the  4,000  or  5,000  years  before  the  20th  cen- 
tury. Now  if  it  did  not  decrease  for  that  period, 
why  should  it  in  the  periods  following?" 

^'During  the  4,000  years  or  more  you  refer  to, 
the  conditions  of  life  on  which  stature  depend,  did 
not  materially  change,  for  which  reason  stature 
did  not.  War  and  field  exercises,  tend  to  large 
stature.     Sedentary   employments,   tend  to   reduce 


206  The  Lunarian  Professor 

the  stature.  The  latter  mode  of  life  has  prevailed 
for  100,000  years,  and  besides  the  general  causes 
there  has  been  the  additional  special  one  in  this 
case,  of  the  loss  of  function  in  a  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  trunk  which  would  of  consequence  lose 
size  in  an  increased  proportion. 

But  after  all  it  is  not  physical  stature  that  com- 
mands respect,  but  mental  stature.  Many  of  your 
greatest  men  have  been  of  small  stature.  You 
speedily  forget  one's  size  when  attending  to  the 
actions  of  his  mind.  The  most  dignified  presence 
is  that  which  impresses  itself  as  the  strongest  men- 
tally. "We  consider  that  to  which  we  are  accustom- 
ed, as  the  most  correct  and  proper,  in  stature  as 
in  everything  else.  If  you  had  been  most  ac- 
customed to  people  four  feet  high,  you  would 
regard  six  feet  people  as  coarse  unwieldy  over- 
grown monsters,  and  when  you  become  accustomed 
to  the  people  of  these  times  with  their  gentleness 
patience,  industry,  unselfishness,  sympathy  and 
kindness  and  unfailing  good  humor,  their  ability 
ingenuity,  almost  divine  wisdom  and  learning, 
their  stature  and  form  will  be  transformed  before 
you  to  become  your  standard  of  perfection.  In 
the  abstract,  that  is  the  most  perfect  form  that 
admits  of  the  accomplishment  of  the  greatest  ends. 
By  this  standard  the  man  of  this  latter  day  is  far 
in  advance  of  all  that  preceded  him,  because  in 
no  other  human  form  would  it  ever  have  been 
possible  to  properly  sustain  so  great  a  brain. 

It  may  interest  you  to  know  that  the  latter  day 
man  has  almost  entirely  lost  the  sense  of  taste,  the 
sense  of  smell  was  already  much  decayed  in  your 


Universal  State  and  Language  207 

day.  It  is  somewhat  poorer  now,  but  still  fairly 
good.  The  sense  of  touch  is  far  more  delicate  than 
formerly,  hearing  equally  good,  and  sight  better 
for  near  objects,  but  not  so  good  for  far  ones.  The 
telepathic  sense  has  been  remarkably  developed 
and  is  one  of  the  subjects  of  study  and  drill  in  the 
schools.  The  adult  people  of  the  third  sex  wear 
hats  ten  inches  in  diameter.  The  heads  of  the 
other  sexes  are  somewhat  smaller.  The  longevity 
of  the  race  has  increased  to  an  average  of  200 
years,  some  occasionally  reaching  300.  The  cause 
of  this  is  due  in  part  to  the  greater  purity  of  their 
food  and  the  smaller  quantity  of  mineral  impuri- 
ties, such  as  lime,  that  is  allowed  to  clog  up  the 
tissues  and  vitiate  the  circulation. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Universal  State  and  Language. 

Soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  first  milleninum, 
the  three  great  governments  of  the  w^orld  were 
consolidated  into  one.  This  was  found  desirable 
in  order  to  have  equal  and  uniform  laws  regard- 
ing the  regulation  of  population,  education  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  and  the  establishment  of  a 
uniform  language.  This  latter  object  was  ac- 
complished by  means  of  the  universal  state  schools. 
A  language  was  invented  on  scientific  principles, 
as  to  its  grammar,  with  words  borrowed  from  dif- 
ferent languages.    This  was  taught,  in  every  school 


208  The  Lunarian  Professor 

together  with  the  native  language  of  the  country 
in  which  the  school  was  located.  This  was  kept 
up  for  50  years,  by  which  time  practically  every- 
body understood  the  new  language,  and  then  the 
others  were  dropped  from  the  curriculum  and  only 
the  new  w^as  thenceforth  taught.  There  contin- 
ued to  be  some  differences  of  race  however  for 
several  thousand  yars,  but  it  is  now  difficult  to 
trace  any  race  distinction. 

The  population  of  the  earth  is  not  now  quite 
so  great  as  it  was  in  the  year  2070.  It  has  grad- 
ually been  contracted  to  about  10,000,000,000.  It 
was  much  larger  during  the  first  millennium,  but 
the  people  were  much  given  to  flitting  about,  fol- 
lowing the  seasons  like  the  birds,  in  consequence 
of  which  in  some  places  the  crowds  became  too 
great  for  comfort.  Eather  than  make  arbitrary 
rules  to  repress  travel,  they  contracted  the  popula- 
tion by  increasing  the  proportion  of  third  sex  chil- 
dren and  diminishing  that  of  the  others.  You  un- 
derstand no  attempt  was  ever  made  to  regulate 
the  size  of  the  family — that  was  left  to  nature — 
only  its  sex.  The  average  number  of  children  to 
a  family  has  long  been  about  18,  sixteen  of  whom 
are  of  the  third  sex.  The  people  live  mostly  in 
cities,  but  the  land  is  cultivated  to  such  crops  as 
clover,  alfalfa,  the  grasses  etc,  the  entire  crops 
being  chemicallly  treated  and  the  food  principles 
extracted  from  them.  Large  tracts  are,  however, 
reserved  for  the  public.  They  are  beautified  and 
adorned  in  every  direction — and  parks  and  flower 
gardens  are  everwhere,  and  here  the  people  are 
fond  of   congregating  in   pleasant  weather  wheel- 


Universal  State  and  Language  209 

iiig  their  motor  cars  over  the  solid  smooth  road- 
ways or  flitting  about  in  their  flyers.  As  eating 
and  drinking  are  no  loger  fashionable  or  practic- 
able pastimes,  there  is  a  conspicuous  absence  of 
restaurants  and  saloons.  Yet  many  of  the  people 
are  supplied  with  little  vials  containing  their  stand- 
ard food  of  which  they  partake  if  need  be.  But 
they  have  no  stated  hours  for  eating,  no  cooking, 
no  cooks,  no  meals.  Each  one  eats  when  his  feel- 
ings tell  him  he  needs  it,  and  is  not  governed  by 
the  appetite  of  others.  Yet,  as  a  practical  fact, 
most  persons  do  fall  into  habits  of  some  regulari- 
ty.    Nature  is  a  stickler  for  habit." 

'*I  suppose,"  said  I,  ''the  state  furnishes  many 
things  that  were  left  to  individuals  to  do  in  my 
time,  but  how  is  the  state  supported?  Who  does 
the  work?" 

**  Everybody  works,  but  not  much  is  required 
of  anyone.  The  society  is  largely  but  not  exclu- 
sively socialistic.  The  state  makes  everything 
ncessary  for  existence,  but  no  superfluities.  In 
these  necessaries  it  has  the  monopoly,  and  no  one 
else  is  allowed  to  make  or  sell  them.  The  state 
thus  makes  all  food  and  clothing  and  clothing  ma- 
terial builds  all  houses,  makes  all  furniture,  carri- 
ages, flying  machines,  furnishes  heat,  light  and 
power,  takes  care  of  the  young  and  educates  them. 
Everybody  works;  is  obliged  to  work  in  fact  for 
his  living.  Eight  tenths  of  the  people  work  for 
the  state,  and  not  over  two-tenths  directly  for 
other  employers.  In  this  two-tenths  are  included 
authors,   ministers   and   priests,   lecturers    on   new 


210  The  Lunarian  Professor 

and    unaccepted    theories,    artists,    some    miliners, 
dressmakers  etc. 

The  state  fixes  the  wages  it  will  pay  according 
to  the  desirability  or  undesirability  of  the  work, 
the  undesirable  of  course  being  the  best  paid — the 
kind  that  would  have  been  the  worst  paid  in  your 
day.  An  average  of  one  hour  a  day  of  labor  for 
the  state  will  furnish  lodging  food  and  necessary 
clothing.  So  in  five  or  six  weeks  one  can  lay  up 
enough  to  maintain  him  a  year,  and  have  the  rest 
of  his  time  to  do  as  he  pleases.  Notwithstanding 
the  cheapness  of  everything,  nothing  is  sold  by 
the  state  except  at  a  trifling  advance  upon  its  cost, 
which  constitutes  the  only  kind  of  taxation  that  is 
imposed.  The  surplus  thus  raised  pays  the  ex- 
penses of  state  officials,  courts,  education  etc.  If 
anyone  wants  more  than  the  modest  living  he  can 
get  by  working  at  the  rate  of  six  weeks  in  a  year; 
he  can  get  it  by  working  longer.  By  working 
steadily  for  a  year  he  can  accumulate  enough  to 
travel  around  the  world.  Or  he  can  indulge  in  a 
fine  painting  or  two,  or  a  musical  instrument  or 
contribute  money  to  some  institution  not  supported 
by  the  state,  as  a  church  or  philosophical  society. 
Or  he  can  lay  up  money  in  the  state  savings  in- 
stitution, until  he  accumulates  a  fortune  for  some 
pet  enterprise  or  for  use  in  old  age.  For  several 
thousand  years  little  or  nothing  has  been  spent  on 
new  public  works.  Everything  really  needed  was 
long  since  built  on  principles  of  eternal  durability, 
and  repairs  are  light.  Railways,  canals  etc.,  of 
course  pay  their  own  way.     On  the  surface  of  the 


'Universal  State  and  Language  211 

earth  almost  everything  may  be  said  to  be  prac- 
tically finished.  The  largest  fields  for  discovery 
are  under  ground.  Stores  of  mineral  wealth  never 
dreamed  of  in  your  day  have  been  unearthed  and 
utilized.  Thousands  of  miles  of  tunnels  have  been 
constructed  and  some  mountain  ranges  have  been 
perforated  in  so  many  directions  that  their  in- 
teriors are  more  familiar  than  their  bleak  and  in- 
hospitable surfaces.  Enormous  unsuspected  caves 
and  openings  have  been  found,  from  many  of  which 
the  contained  material  was  ejected  by  volcanic  ac- 
tion in  ancient  times. 

In  a  great  number  of  places  tunnels  have  pene- 
trated to  regions  of  insupportable  heat,  and  this 
heat  transformed  into  electricity  has  been  convey- 
ed to  the  surface  and  its  power  distributed  to  great 
distances.  This  plan  has  been  largely  practiced  in 
the  mountainous  regions  of  Asia  and  South  Amer- 
ica, Scandinavia,  Alaska  and  other  countries.  In 
such  regions  heat  can  be  reached  without  descend- 
ing, and  so  the  tunnels  are  self  draining.  This 
source  of  power  helps  out  the  sun  in  the  rainy 
seasons  etc." 

''You  mentioned  something  about  state  savings 
institutions  just  now;  I  suppose  they  receive  the 
money  of  the  people  and  pay  interest  on  it — or 
how?" 

"The  state  savings  institutions  receive  money 
and  take  care  of  it,  but  they  pay  no  interest.  They 
do  not  loan  it,  so  get  no  income  from  it  and  can- 
not pay  any.  In  fact  their  fundamental  ideas  of 
business  have  undergone  a  radical  change  for  these 
many  ages  back.     They  deny  that  it  is  fair  busi- 


212  Tlie  Lunarian   Professor 

ness  to  take  a  profit  on  any  transaction.  If  a  man 
lends  his  money  to  another  he  is  entitled  to  pay 
for  the  time  it  takes  him  to  make  the  loan  and 
collect  it,  but  he  is  not  entitled  to  interest  for  use 
of 'the  money.  If  a  man  borrows  a  plow  worth  ten 
dollars  and  wears  it  to  the  amount  of  one  dollar, 
he  should  pay  the  owner  the  one  dollar,  but  it  is 
for  repairs,  not  interest.  If  he  borrows  ten  dollars 
in  money  and  returns  the  full  amount  there  is  no 
wear  to  make  good.  If  a  man  borrows  ten  dollars 
for  which  he  must  pay  one  dollar  interest,  then 
buys  a  plow  and  w^ears  it  one  dollar's  worth  he  is 
out  two  dollars.  So  he  must  charge  one  dollar 
above  its  cost,  for  his  crop,  when  he  sells  it,  and 
this  is  called  profit.  He  does  not  keep  it,  how- 
ever, but  must  pass  it  over  to  the  capitalist.  He 
might  charge  two  dollars  profit,  in  which  case,  he 
would  keep  one  for  his  profit  and  give  the  other 
to  the  capitalist  for  his.  In  both  cases  they  say,  it 
is  w^rong  and  unsound  as  a  business  transaction, 
because  it  is  getting  or  giving  something  for 
nothing.  The  idea  of  the  legitimacy  of  profits  and 
interest  arose  in  ancient  times  in  connection  with 
the  uncertainty  or  the  gambling  element  that  en- 
tered into  all  business.  This  was  due  to  individ- 
ualism or  the  practice  of  each  one  doing  business 
for  himself,  taking  his  own  risks  and  chances  in 
a  thousand  ways.  If  one  spent  his  time  and  money 
in  making  something  to  sell,  he  was  not  absolute- 
ly sure  he  would  be  able  to  find  a  buyer.  And 
if  one  loaned  his  money  to  be  used  in  business  he 
shared  the  risks  of  it  and  could  not  be  absolute- 
ly sure  of  getting  it  back  again.    Up  to  the  amount 


Universal  State  and  Language  213 

of  the  risks,  profit  and  interest  were  under  the  con- 
ditions legitimate.  But  while  under  the  individual 
system  everybody  charged  for  the  risk  of  loss, 
the  losses  in  reality  fell  on  only  a  part,  and  so 
the  rest  got  something  for  nothing.  When  insur- 
ance companies  were  organized  to  distribute  part 
of  the  risks,  making  those  who  did  not  lose,  con- 
tribute to  make  up  the  loss  of  those  who  did, 
the  risks  of  all  were  diminished,  and  the  profit  and 
interest  charges  on  that  account  reduced.  If  in- 
surance with  its  distribution  of  risks  had  extended 
to  every  form  of  risk,  and  if  the  members  of  the 
companies  or  insured  persons  had  embraced  every- 
one in  the  community  instead  of  only  a  part,  then 
the  special  risks  to  each  one  would  have  been  ?J- 
together  eliminated,  the  insurance  would  have  be- 
come a  part  of  the  cost  of  the  goods  to  be  added 
to  their  sale  value,  and  profits  above  this  no  longer 
legitimate.  For  if  one  is  entitled  to  profits  so  are 
all  those  with  whom  he  exchanges  and  nobody 
gains;  unless  the  profits  of  one  are  higher  than 
those  of  another  in  which  case  someone  is  cheated 
or  in  other  words  robbed.  Now  when  the  state 
undertook  practically  all  business  and  all  trans- 
portation, and  owned  all  houses,  shops  and  fac- 
tories, ail  risks  of  all  forms  were  at  once  distribut- 
ed to  ail  the  people,  without  the  ceremony  of  in- 
surance. If  a  building  burned,  or  tools,  or  ma- 
chinery became  superseded  by  better  ones,  or  goods 
became  unsalable,  or  employes  dishanest,  or  incom- 
petent, the  loss  was  fully  insured,  for  it  fell  upon 
all,  and  there  was  nobody  outside  of  this  **aH"  to 
make  it  good.     There  could  therefore  be  no  possi- 


214  The  Lunarian  Professor 

ble  honest  end  to  be  gained  by  profits ;  and  interest 
on  money  falls  with  profits.  As  all  the  people 
work  some  time  or  other  and  receive  wages,  all 
have  a  bank  account,  for  they  are  taught  to  be 
careful  and  economical,  and  they  understand  that 
one  cannot  spend  a  dollar  and  still  have  it." 

*'How  do  they  encourage  and  paj^  for  inventions 
and  discoveries — or  has  everything  been  invented 
and  discovered?" 

"No,  they  are  discovering  something  new  all 
the  time.  A  good  many  people  Avho  have  got 
something  ahead  and  have  leisure  find  congenial 
employment  in  invention.  If  they  produce  any- 
thing valuable  the  state  takes  and  uses  it  pajang 
them  for  their  time,  and  also  distinguishing  them 
by  honorable  mention  and  in  some  cases  by  dec- 
orations or  medals.  If  the  development  of  the 
idea  requires  the  use  of  expensive  machinery  or 
materials,  it  is  submitted  to  the  judgment,  of 
experts  whether  the  would  be  inventor  shall  be 
furnished  these  things  at  public  expense.  If  they 
think  his  idea  not  of  sufficient  value,  he  must 
either  drop  it  or  pursue  it  at  his  own  expense,  and 
take  his  chances  of  getting  the  glory  and  the 
pay  when  it  is  demonstrated,  and  these  considera- 
tions seem  to  be  enough  to  bring  out  their  best 
endeavor  in  that  line." 

''Then  it  seems  they  don't  value  brain  work 
any  higher   than  hand   work?" 

*'They  value  brains,  but  do  not  pay  extra  for 
them  for  the  reason  that  they  regard  them  as 
owing  their  best  thoughts  to  the  state.  They  say, 
that  whatever  one  is,  the  state  has  made  him,  and 


Universal  State  and  Language  215 

if  he  is  above  the  average  he  owes  more  than  the 
average." 

''Did  you  say,  Professor,  that  the  houses  belong 
to   the  state?" 

"Yes  the  state  has  built  houses  enough  to  ac- 
commodate the  whole  population.  In  each  town 
or  city  the  houses  are  of  uniform  height  for  that 
place.  Thus  there  are  tw^o  story  towns  or  four  or 
ten  story  towns.  A  very  large  place  may  be  twen- 
ty or  thirty  stories  in  the  middle  and  lower  furth- 
er out.  But  no  differences  are  allowed  on  any 
block.  The  roofs  are  flat  and  continuous  over 
each  block  and  connected  with  neighboring  blocks 
by  bridges  over  the  streets.  The  flyers  are  all 
kept  on  the  roofs  and  the  flyers'  entrance  to  the 
buildings  is  by  a  roof  entrance  connecting  with  the 
elevator.  Wheeled  vehicles  are  kept  upon  the 
streets.  There  are  generally  vacant  apartments  to 
be  had  if  any  one  wishes  to  move  from  one  city  to 
another.  But  the  population  has  its  fads  and 
whims  and  sometimes  the  popularity  of  some  place 
will  attract  more  people  than  the  houses  can  ac- 
commodate. In  that  case  the  government  will 
build  some  new  houses.  Houses  are  rented  by  the 
year  for  one  per  cent  of  their  cost  plus  the  one- 
fifth  of  one  per  cent  for  repairs.  The  latter  sum 
is  paid  back  to  the  tenant  if  the  repairs  are  not 
required.  Thus  if  a  house  costs  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars, the  rent  would  be  one  hundred,  the  theory  be- 
ing that  its  cost  would  be  repaid  in  100  years. 
But  as  houses  last  1,000  years — in  fact  are  in- 
destructible except  by  an  earthquake — the  state 
has  accumulated  a  large  fund  from  rents  of  houses 


216  The  Lunarian  Professor 

that  have  long  since  paid  for  themselves,  and  this 
fund  builds  new  ones  when  they  are  wanted." 

''I  suppose  there  is  no  woodwork  used  in  build- 
ing a  house." 

''They  use  what  they  call  wood,  but  it  is  an 
artificial  product  made  of  mineral.  It  is  almost  as 
light  as  wood,  can  be  cut  and  formed  as  wood  can, 
but  is  much  stronger  and  cannot  be  burned  and 
never  rots.  By  slight  differences  in  its  manufac- 
ture several  varieties  are  produced  imitating  vari- 
ous sorts  of  wood.  It  has  totally  displaced  wood 
and  is  used  for  all  purposes  from  fine  furniture  to 
railway  ties.  It  is  the  accumulation  of  indestruti- 
ble  things  that  makes  existence  so  cheap  in  these 
latter  daj's.  The  people  enjoy  the  fruits  of  labor 
performed  ages  ago.  And  the  things  they  make 
now  are  all  made  to  endure.  Even  their  clothes 
are  made  to  last  a  life  time — textile  fabrics  from 
mineral  wool  and  mineral  cotton.  Even  their  food 
is  provided  for  years  ahead.  It  is  put  up  in  vials, 
and  sealed  up  to  keep  a  hundred  years  if  re- 
quired." 

"What  is  it  composed  of?" 

"It  is  in  several  modifications  suited  to  differ- 
ent ages.  In  infancy  and  youth  its  composition 
is  almost  exactly  that  of  a  hen's  egg.  For  mature 
and  old  people  the  proportions  are  slightly  differ- 
ent, the  lime  is  entirely  left  out  for  the  old,  and  a 
larger  proportion  of  phosphorus  is  used  in  the 
food  of  the  middle  aged  and  m'entally  active." 

"If  they  can  put  together  the  material  for  a 
hen's  egg,"  said  I,  "what's  the  trouble  with  hatch- 
iuf?  a  chicken  out  of  it." 


Universal  State  and  Language  217 

''They  can  make  all  of  the  egg  except  the  germ. 
That  has  been  proved  in  this  way.  They  take  the 
germ  out  of  a  real  hens  egg^  and  put  it  into  a 
shell  filled  with  the  artificial  food,  then  apply  the 
proper  temperature  and  it  is  hatched  in  the  usual 
time  and  all  the  food  consumed.  This  is  a  com- 
mon experiment." 

''That  is  good  proof  that  their  food  is  the  right 
material  for  chicks  at  any  rate." 

"Well  there  is  plenty  of  scientific  proof  of  the 
correctness  of  all  the  different  modifications.  An- 
alyses have  repeatedly  been  made  of  human  bodies 
of  different  ages  and  their  exact  constituents  with 
their  proportions  ascertained  and  thus  it  is  knoAvn 
precisely  what  they  require  for  food.  And  when 
this  is  taken  with  a  sufficient  quantity  of  dis- 
tilled or  electrically  purified  water  there  is  no 
liability  of  being  hungry  and  little  of  being  sick. 
At  any  rate  the  general  health  and  regularly  in- 
creasing longevity  of  the  people  proves  better  than 
any  theorizing  the  general  correctness  of  their 
way  of  life.  There  is  no  longer  any  such  thing  as 
a  patent  medicine,  a  pill,  or  a  powder,  and  there 
are  no  medical  practitioners.  There  are  surgeons; 
and  there  are  scientific  chemical  professors,  whose 
advice  regarding  the  proper  food  is  sometimes  ask- 
ed. But  almost  all  distempers  they  are  liable  to, 
are  rectified  by  self  treatment;  study  of  hygiene 
and  the  conditions  of  animal  life  being  taught  in 
the  schools,  not  in  a  sciolous  or  smattering  way 
but  thoroughly  and  scientifically;  for  they  say  no 
knowledge  is  so  essential  to  all  people  as  this.  It 
is  by  using  scientifically   adapted  food  that  they 


218  The  Lunarian  Professor 

have  succeeded  in  extending  the  average  duration 
of  life,  and  they  claim  that  they  will  yet  raise  it 
to  a  thousand  years.  They  are  right  in  saying 
that  decay  and  death  from  old  age  are  due  to  the 
clogging  up  of  the  system  with  foreign  matter  that 
can  neither  be  assimilated  and  taken  into  the 
tissues,  nor  ejected  from  the  system.  Their  reme- 
dy for  this  is  the  prevention  of  the  introduction  of 
such  substances  by  keeping  them  entirely  out  of 
the  food.  This  they  have  nearly  succeeded  in  do- 
ing, since  the  body  is  no  longer  the  tenement  of 
a  chemical  works  to  so  very  large  an  extent,  as  it 
used  to  be.  2>lanufacture  of  these  deleterious  resi- 
duums  inside  the  body  is  nearly  stopped.  The 
intelligent  selection  of  the  food  then,  with  cleanli- 
ness and  protection  from  cold  constiute  the  prin- 
ciples of  their  treatment.  Epidemic  diseases  have 
long  since  been  entirely  abolished. 

The  organic  germs  that  caused  these  diseases 
depended  on  swanps,  stagnant  pools,  and  decaying 
animal  and  vegetable  matter  for  nests  in  which  to 
be  cultivated,  and  from  such  places  they  Avere 
conveyed  by  the  air  or  water  and  so  reached  the 
fluids  of  the  human  body  in  which  their  further 
cultivation  went  on,  to  the  great  grief  of  your 
race.  Now  there  is  not  a  swamp  nor  any  such 
thing  in  all  the  world,  and  nothing  whatever  is 
allowed  to  decay.  Everything  that  grows  is  either 
utilized  or  cremated.  All  refuse  from  the  numer- 
ous chemical  works  is  treated  electrically  and  re- 
turned to  the  soil  as  a  fertilizer.  The  water  in 
their  sewers  is  often  not  so  very  much  worse  than 
that  which  used  to  run  in  your  water  pipes,  but 


Universal  Siate  and  Language  219 

it  is  ail  electrically  treated  and  the  precipitated 
sediment  returned  to  the  land  while,  only  the  clear 
Avater  is  turned  into  the  rivers. 

''I  suppose  they  no  longer  keep  domestic  ani- 
mals/' said  I. 

"They  no  longer  keep  them  for  use  to  any 
great  extent,  but  they  have  preserved  specimens  of 
all  the  domestic  animals,  and  some  of  those  that 
were  wild  in  your  day  as  objects  of  curiosity.  They 
also  have  some  in  the  country  as  pets.  There  ar.^ 
a  few  wild  animals  in  some  of  the  large  state 
parks  that  having  never  been  disturbed  have  prac- 
tically tamed  themselves.  Animal  power  passed 
out  of  use  ages  ago.  The  people  are  scrupulously 
nice  in  their  ideas  of  cleanliness  and  so  no  animals 
of  any  sort,  not  even  canary  birds  are  allowed  in 
the  cities.  In  this  respect  they  look  back  with  un- 
limited disgust  upon  the  people  of  your  day  with 
their  filthy  horses  and  dogs  perambulating  and 
befouling  the  streets,  their  stables,  stores  and  meat 
shops  full  of  the  odors  of  decaying  vegetable  and 
animal  matter,  their  accumulations  of  ashes  and 
cinders  and  dust,  and  of  filth  and  garbage  in  foul 
cess  pools,  barrels,  gutters,  vaults  and  sey/ers,  their 
personal  habits  of  eating  and  drinking  with  their 
sequelae  and  the  necessary  cooking  and  dishwash- 
ing, and  their  smoking  and  tobacco  chewing  and 
spitting.  All  this  is  done  away  v/ith,  and  the  peo- 
ple can  hardly  understand  a  mode  of  life  in  which 
it  w^as  included;  much  less  necessary. 

The  streets  of  the  cities  are  as  clean  as  a  draw- 
ing room,  and  it  is  easy  to  keep  them  so  since 
there  is  so  little  occasion  for  them  being  soiled. 


220  The   Lunarian   Professor 

They  use  only  electricallj^  purified  water  or  rain 
water,  and  far  less  than  was  consumed  in  your 
day.  The  houses  are  all  fireproof  and  the  fire  de- 
partments have  very  little  use  for  water,  using 
chemical  extinguishers.  The  factories  for  the  man- 
ufacture of  food  stuffs,  the  mineral  wood,  furn- 
iture, vehicles  textile  fabrics  etc.,  are  usuallj^ 
placed  in  suburbs  at  a  little  distance  from  the 
cities,  and  the  working  people  pass  back  and  forth 
by  the  cars  or  flyers.  The  usual  day's  work  is  4 
to  6  hours  and  all  sorts  of  work  is  paid  by  the 
hour.  Manufactured  goods  are  stored  in  the  busi- 
ness quarters  of  the  cities,  and  delivered  where 
ordered  as  in  your  day,  but  by  more  exact  and 
complete  means. 

There  has  not  for  many  ages  been  any  sexual 
distinction  in  clothes,  and  the  slavery  of  fashion 
was  long  ago  abolished.  The  costumes  show  the 
individuality  of  their  owners  and  are  extremely 
various;  a  mixed  company  looking  like  a  congress 
of  the  nations  of  your  day. 

"How  do  they  manage  their  political  affairs,'' 
I  inquired. 

''They  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  any  local 
political  affairs  to  be  managed.  They  have  very 
large  and  extensive  business  affairs,  and  they  are 
managed  as  business  and  not  as  politics.  All  the 
employes  in  the  several  business  departments  of 
the  state  are  first  taken  from  the  schools  where 
they  have  been  educated  and  prepared  for  the 
occupations  they  Avished  to  be  qualified  to  follow. 
All  vacancies  to  responsible  places  are  filled  on 
civil   service   principles.      The    foremen   receive    a 


tiniversal  State  and  Language  221 

little  higher  wages  than  the  common  hands,  but 
nobody  receives  any  profits  except  the  tax  or  tariff 
the  state  puts  on  goods  it  makes  and  sells. 

The  workers  in  each  particular  trade  or  occu- 
pation in  any  state  form  a  society  or  guild,  pre- 
sided over  by  a  board  or  commission  elected  by  the 
members  of  the  guild  from  a  list  of  candidates  who 
have  passed  examination  for  competency.  There 
is  another  board  elected  by  the  whole  people  that 
has  the  general  oversight  of  all  business  and  the 
equalization  of  wages. 

The  guild  board  receives  from  the  state  the 
raw  material  it  consumes  and  is  charged  with  it. 
It  sees  to  its  distribution  among  the  shops  of  the 
guild,  receives  and  turns  over  to  the  state  the 
articles  made  by  the  guild,  certifies  to  the  pay 
rolls,  and  to  the  cost  of  the  articles  made.  It  de- 
termines the  amount  of  material  required  and  the 
number  of  men  that  shall  be  employed,  basing  its 
regulation  on  the  requisition  of  the  general  board 
for  the  goods  which  in  turn  gets  its  data  from  the 
store  keepers  who  make  requisitions  on  the  board 
according  to  the  public  demand  for  the  goods. 
The  guild  board  determines  the  number  of  men 
it  can  employ  and  if  it  has  too  many  the  fact  is 
reported  to  the  general  board  whose  business  it  is 
to  find  work  for  the  surplus  men  in  another  trade. 
The  guild  board  naturally  anxious  to  preserve  the 
credit  of  its  own  guild,  always  selects  the  least 
competent  of  their  men  for  transfer.  The  gen- 
eral board  is  constantly  posted  as  to  the  demand 
for  labor  in  the  different  guilds  and  can  usually 
assign  the  men  to  places  suited  to  their  capacity, 


222  The  Lunarian   Professor 

wliich  commonly  admits  of  more  or  less  variety  of 
employment,  their  school  education  being  conduct- 
ed with  that  view.  If  the  trades  are  all  full  or  if 
the  men  prove  unfit  to  perform  such  skilled  labor 
as  is  required,  they  are  furnished  laboring  work 
not  requiring  skill  of  which  there  is  always  plen- 
ty in  the  procurement  of  raw  materials  for  food, 
minerals,  agricultural  products,  building  materials 
etc.  As  most  of  the  things  produced  including 
food  can  be  kept  an  indefinite  length  of  time,  there 
is  no  objection  to  a  considerable  accumulation 
ahead.  When  this  happens  and  it  often  does,  the 
community  is  in  a  prosperous  condition  for  it  has 
more  than  enough.  It  is  a  sign  that  the  workmen 
have  saved  their  money  instead  of  buying  goods 
with  it.  They  may  knock  off  w^ork  and  take  holi- 
day till  the  stocks  are  reduced.  Sometimes  the 
fashion  changes,  and  the  state  has  something  on 
hand  it  cannot  sell.  Like  any  other  manufacturer 
it  must  sell  at  a  sacrifice  for  what  it  can  get,  and 
use  better  judgment  next  time.  The  general  board 
looks  out  for  that.  This  board  also  equalizes  wages 
in  the  several  trades,  lowering  the  pay  in  those 
trades  into  which  there  is  the  greatest  tendency  to 
crowd  and  raising  it  in  those  that  are  deserted. 
Striking  in  a  body  is  not  allowed.  But  many  or 
all  the  members  of  a  guild  may  give  notice  of  an 
intention  to  leave,  and  they  are  then  allowed  to 
do  so,  a  small  number  at  a  time.  The  general 
board  inquires  into  the  cause  of  the  dissatisfaction 
and  rectifies  it  if  possible.  If  the  wages  are  high 
enough  the  fact  will  be  proved  by  other  workmen 
coming  from  other  trades  or  other  places  to  take 


Universal  State  and  Language  223 

the  job,  in  which  case  the  disgruntled  men  must 
take  such  other  work  as  the  board  can  find  for 
them  or  remain  idle  if  they  prefer  to.  If  they  are 
not  high  enough  the  vacancies  will  remain  unfilled 
till  the  board  raises  them. 

When  men  are  idle,  by  no  fault  of  their  own, 
but  because  all  places  are  filled,  the  state  is  bound 
to  feed  and  clothe  them.  This  is  the  theory,  but 
it  is  very  rarely  put  into  practice.  Since  they 
prefer  to  let  them  work  at  something  rather  than 
be  idle  even  if  the  work  is  not  in  great  demand.** 

''They  seem  to  have  but  little  use  for  apothe- 
caries and  doctors,  how  about  lawyers  and  courts?" 

''There  is  no  such  thing  nov/  as  the  practice  of 
law  as  formerly  understood.  In  your  day  the 
lawyer  was  called  an  officer  of  the  court.  But  in 
reality  he  Vv^as  a  partizan  of  one  of  the  litigants 
bent  on  gaining  a  victory  for  his  client  regardless 
of  the  justice  of  his  cause;  and  he  often  gained  it 
when  he  knew  it  was  unjust.  Each  town  or  dis- 
trict is  supplied  with  a  board  of  lawyers  three, 
five  or  seven  according  to  population,  and  these 
comprise  the  court.  They  are  elected  by  the  peo- 
ple from  the  law  graduates  of  the  state  school, 
for  a  definite  term.  Any  small  case  is  heard  by 
either  one  of  the  lawyers  upon  whom  both  liti- 
gants can  agree,  both  sides  being  heard  and  wit- 
nesses examined  by  him.  If  either  litigant  is 
dissatisfied  with  his  decision  he  may  appeal  to  the 
full  bench,  whose  decision  by  a  majority  is  final 
on  questions  of  fact.  But  if  a  minority  dissents 
on  points  of  law  a  further  appeal  as  to  the  law  is 
allowed  to  be  made  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 


2.24  The   Lunarian   Professor 

state,  the  dissenting  minority  preparing  the  ease 
for  the  higher  court,  and  the  majority  preparing 
the  counter  case  in  defense  of  their  decision.  The 
defeated  party  pays  the  costs.  These,  however, 
are  comparatively  light,  lawyers  receiving  no  high- 
er pay  than  mechanics.  But  as  the  position  brings 
distinction  there  are  always  enough  candidates  for 
it.  They  are  only  paid  as  lawyers  for  the  actual 
time  spent  b}'  them,  and  often  increase  their  in- 
come by  other  employment;  for  there  is  but  a 
small  amount  of  litigation. 

The  criminal  procedure  is  almost  as  simple. 
A  person  accused  of  a  petty  crime  is  brought  be- 
fore a  single  lawyer  who  examines  the  witnesses 
for  both  sides  and  decides  the  case,  if  the  accused 
is  not  satisfied  he  appeals  to  the  full  bench,  and 
the  minority  of  that  bench  may  carry  an  appeal 
on  questions  of  law  to  the  Supreme  Court.  In 
important  cases  the  legal  bench  may  summon  the 
bench  of  a  neighboring  town  or  district  to  sit  with 
them  in  the  case  and  share  the  responsibility.  There 
is  no  criminal  class  and  crime  of  any  sort  is  very 
rare.  It  is  regarded  as  an  insanity  and  a  family 
in  which  it  is  developed  is  at  once  prevented  from 
going  further  in  the  hereditary  transmission  of  it. 
There  is  no  capital  punishment." 

''Well,"  said  I,  "they  are  an  interesting  peo- 
ple; they  seem  to  have  things  about  the  way  they 
want  them  and  I  reckon  they  ought  to  be  happy." 

*'Yes,"  he  said,  ''they  ought  to  be,  and  they 
are;  as  much  so  as  any  intelligent  creatures  can 
be.  You  may  know  they  are  good  natured,  jolly 
and  generous  from  the  size  of  their  mouths.     The 


Mars  mid  the  Martians 


size  of  their  heads  is  a  guaranty  that  whatever  is 
knowable  on  earth    they    are    pretty  sure  to  find 
out    if  you  give  them  time  enough;   and  renders 
probable  the  inference  that  they  know  that  they 
are  well  off,  and  know   enough  to  be  contented. 
And  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  are;  and  while  they 
congratulate   themselves,   they   never   fail   to    call 
up  in  grateful  remembrance  the  ancestors  througli 
whose  martyrdom  they  have  attained  peace     Well 
we  must  now  take  our  leave  of  this  large  hearted 
and  large  headed  posterity  of  yours  and  return  to 
the  nineteenth  century. 
Ah!  here  we  are!" 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
Mars  and  the  Martians. 

The  Professor  at  this  point  turned  about,  took 
hold  of  the  wire  that  anchored  his  car  and  slowly 
pulled  it  to  the  ground.  I  saw  I  was  about  to  lose 
him,  but  felt  that  I  ought  not  to  try  to  detain  him 
any  longer. 

I  thanked  him  cordially  for  the  invaluable  visit 
he  had  given  me  and  told  him  I  hoped  it  might  be 
repeated  He  nodded  his  head  in  acquiescence,  by 
which  I  understood,  I  might  expect  him  some  time 
again.  I  went  on  to  congratulate  him  on  the  hap- 
py home  he  was  returning  to  and  the  long  agree- 


^26  The  Lunarian   Professor 

able  rest  that  awaited  Lim  there  after  this  fatigu- 
ing journey. 

He  smiled  -with  his  great  eyefi,  and  thanked 
me  for  my  good  wishes,  but  said  he  was  destined 
to  no  such  rest  as  I  w^ished  him. 

"From  the  moment  I  reach  home,"  said  he, 
**I  shall  be  as  busy  as  I  can  be  for  a  week,  pre- 
paring for  my  journey  to  Mars." 

"Your  journey  to  Mars!"  I  exclaimed,  "do  you 
mean  to  say  you  go  to  Mars?" 

"I  have  been  there  only  three  times  myself; 
but  our  people  have  visited  that  planet  for  the 
last  ten  thousand  years,  and  there  is  quite  a  colony 
of  Lunarians  permanently  settled  there  looking 
after   our   interests." 

' '  So  you  have  interests  on  Mars !  Well  now  this 
is  interesting.  I  v>dsh  I  had  known  this  before. 
I  would  give  anything  for  information  about  Mars 
and  the  Martians." 

"Well  it  will  take  me  a  little  tim.e  to  arrange 
my  car  and  I  can  talk  to  you  while  I  am  doing 
it.  You  see  our  folks  first  went  there  about  10,000 
years  ago.  They  found  the  planet  inhabited  by 
two  bitterly  hostile  races  that  did  little  else  than 
hunt  each  other." 

"They  must  be  like  our  race  then,"  I  observed. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "in  respect  to  their  warlike 
instincts,  but  not  as  to  their  forms.  They  are  not 
human  nor  even  vertebrate,  but  they  are  built  on 
the  radiate  plan.  In  short  they  are  almost  exact- 
ly like  your  star  fishes,  but  enormously  bigger.  I 
have  seen  them  as  large  as  twelve  feet  across, 
though    their    more    common    size    at    maturity    is 


Mars  and  the  Martians  ^^^ 

six  to  eight  feet.  The  difference  between  the  two 
races  is  that  in  one  there  are  six  spokes  or  limbs 
radiating  from  the  central  body  and  in  the  other 
there  are  but  five.  These  limbs  may  be  called 
either  legs  or  arms,  for  they  serve  as  either  and 
are  sometimes  one  and  sometimes  the  other.  There 
is  a  fleshy  disc  that  forms  the  extremity  of  each 
limb,  around  which  like  the  petals  of  a  flower  are 
the  flngers  or  toes,  about  like  so  many  thumbs. 
There  are  six  of  these  in  the  six  legged  race  and 
five  in  the  five  legged.  This  disc  with  its  thumbs 
forms  the  foot  vrhen  the  individual  walks  on  land. 
Two  of  them  are  always  on  the  ground  when  he 
is  standing,  while  the  other  four  are  free  to  be 
used  as  hands,  these  thumbs  being  opposable  and 
able  to   grasp  tolerably  well. 

When  they  move  on  land  it  is  always  in  an  up- 
right position,  and  they  roll  along  edgewise  like  a 
wheel  destitute  of  felloes  rolling  on  the  ends  of 
the  spokes.  The  central  piece  or  hub  constitutes 
the  body  including  the  stomach,  heart,  lungs  etc., 
as  well  as  the  sense  organs  and  brain.  The  shape 
of  the  body  is  like  a  short  stout  cylinder  tapering 
to  a  rounded  point  at  each  end  from  one  and  a 
half  to  two  feet  in  diameter,  the  legs  radiatin^^ 
from  the  sides.  At  the  center  of  one  end  of  this 
body  is  the  mouth,  and  the  brain  is  located  all 
round  it  in  what  we  would  call  the  cheeks.  There 
is  no  neck.  There  are  six  eyes  immediately  around 
the  mouth  corresponding  with  the  six  legs,  and 
just  outside  of  the  eyes  are  six  ear  holes  with 
closable  lips,  but  no  outside  flaps  or  shells.  Out- 
side of  these  are  six  breathing  or  blow  holes  lead- 


^2$  The  Lunarian   Professor 

ing  into  the  lungs.  The  mouth  is  round  and  the 
lips  pucker  together  when  closing.  There  is  no 
up  or  down  to  the  Martian  man,  he  stands  equally 
well  on  any  pair  of  his  legs  and  handles  equally 
well  with  any  of  his  hands,  and  this  is  one  of  his 
greatest  drawbacks.  He  has  a  thick  horny  skin 
w^hich  appears  to  have  been  the  only  skeleton  pos- 
sessed by  his  ancestors,  but  in  addition,  he  has 
a  light  internal  skeleton  developed  later  by  the 
practice  of  standing  and  running  on  his  limbs, 
which  consists  of  a  lot  of  plates  and  hoop  like 
ribs  in  the  body,  and  what  would  pass  for  thigh 
and  leg  bones  in  each  limb.  These  last  are  hung 
w^ith  ball  and  socket  joints  both  at  the  articula- 
tion with  the  body  and  at  the  elbow^  and  wrist.  The 
limbs  are  thus  remarkably  supple  and  when  the 
Martian  has  a  mind  to,  he  can  walk  extremely 
well  sideways  on  two  legs,  that  is,  the  head  or 
mouth  going  forward.  And  this  is  the  way  he 
should  walk  as  our  people  long  ago  pointed  out 
to  the  Martians.  He  can  walk  on  the  same  two 
feet  continuously  edgwise  as  the  w^heel  goes,  but 
to  do  this  he  must  merely  drag  the  rear  foot  up 
to  the  front  one,  and  then  throw^  the  front  ont; 
forward  again,  or  else  sling  them  around  past  each 
other  alternately  in  an  awkward  manner  as  a  cow 
does,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  all  on  the  same 
plane.  They  greatly  prefer  the  rolling  motion 
and  roll  off  on  their  spokes  with  surprising  speed, 
twenty  miles  an  hour  being  a  common  gait  on  a 
good  road  while  some  of  the  gigantic  twelve  foot- 
ers can  if  necessary  reel  off  forty  or  more. 

They    are   so    extremely   fond    of   traveling   off 


Mars  and  tJie  Mariiaiis  229 

in  this  manner,  that  it  is  difficult  for  them  to 
confine  their  attention  to  any  sedentary  employ- 
ment. In  order  to  attain  a  high  civilization  people 
must  be  settled,  and  occupy  themselves  in  some 
definite  and  constant  modes  of  employment.  We 
pointed  out  to  them  long  ago  that  they  could  never 
have  well  differentiated  arms  and  hands,  unless 
they  set  apart  certain  of  their  limbs  to  be  used 
exclusively  as  arms,  and  never  allow  the  hands 
thus  set  apart  for  handling,  to  be  used  as  feet. 

They  objected,  that,  to  confine  themselves  to 
two  legs  for  walking  would  reduce  their  gait  to 
five  or  six  miles  an  hour.  This  would  be  a  great 
draw-back  in  war,  and  give  their  undifferentiated 
enemies  the  advantage  over  them.  This  objection 
no  longer  has  much  weight,  since  war  has  entirely 
ceased  among  them,  the  five  legged  race  having 
long  since  been  defeated  and  practically  exter- 
minated, the  few  that  are  left  being  glad  to  accept 
the  most  obscure  positions  that  will  secure  them 
a  bare  existence." 

''They  must  have  been  terrific  warriors.'* 
*'I  saw  a  regiment  of  the  six  legged  men  drill- 
ing once.  They  were  marshaled  on  a  large  plain 
in  two  ranks,  and  rolled  backward  and  forward 
fast  or  slow  according  to  command  with  great 
precision.  They  then  were  commanded  to  load 
and  advance.  Around  the  body  in  the  spaces  be- 
tween the  limbs  they  had  artificial  leathern  pouches 
in  which  they  carried  their  ammunition.  When 
they  received  the  command  to  load  they  took  out 
of  these  pouches  six  stones  one  for  each  hand, 
and    they    advanced    vv^th    them    clasped    between 


230  The   Lunarian   Professor 

their  stumpj^  fiugers.  Then  they  were  command- 
ed to  double  quick  and  discharge,  upon  which 
they  advanced  at  terrific  speed  and  at  a 
given  signal  let  fly  the  stones  one  after  another 
as  the  hand  containing  it  came  to  the  proper  posi- 
tion for  the  most  effective  throw.  The  centrifugal 
force  they  acquired  from  the  long  revolving  arms 
sent  them  with  tremendous  force,  som.e  going  at 
least  a  mile.  In  real  war  they  used  cast  iron  bul- 
lets. The}^  have  plenty  of  iron  on  Mars  and  our 
folks  taught  them  how  to  smelt  and  work  it.  The 
regiment  then  charged  up  to  a  hand  to  hand  en- 
counter with  an  imaginary  enemy.  In  this  charge 
they  were  armed  with  a  heavy  circular  iron  disc 
in  each  hand,  the  disc  having  a  handle  on  the  back 
side  by  which  it  was  held.  Then  they  charged 
with  terrific  fury  the  discs  flying  around  like 
lightning,  chopping  into  mince  meat,  (in  imagina- 
tion)  any  enemy  that  dared  stand  before  them. 

The  government  is  a  despotism,  the  king  having 
about  the  same  authority  as  the  emperor  of  Rus- 
sia, although  he  has  a  council  of  state  v/hose  advice 
he  listens  to,  and  then  does  as  he  pleases.  Since 
the  subjugation  of  the  five  legged  race  this  king 
is  the  supreme  ruler  of  the  whole  planet.  In  some 
districts  the  people  have  made  considerable  ad- 
vances in  civilization,  confining  themselves  to  tlio 
use  of  tw^o  legs,  and  walking  sidev;ise  instead  of 
rolling  edgewise.  But  the  king  does  not  want  all 
his  subjects  to  adopt  these  innovations,  for  he  is 
very  proud  of  his  soldiers  and  thinks  them  more 
efficient  on  six  legs  than  tv/o.     Besides,  for  cer- 


Mars  and  the  MarUans  231 

tain  kinds  of  labor,  especially  drawing  wagons  and 
carriages,  the  old  way  is  the  best." 

*'Why  don't  they  use  horses,"  I  inquired,  "or 
haven't  they  any?'* 

"There  are  no  such  animals  on  M!ars,  nor  in 
fact  any  other  sort  of  animals  except  radiates. 
There  are  many  genera  of  these,  mostly  living  in 
the  water  and  all  small,  except  the  dominant  race, 
which  I  call  the  Martians. 

But  there  are  great  differences  in  the  conditions 
of  life  amongst  the  people  of  this  race,  some  be- 
ing fairly  civilized  while  others  are  only  beasts 
of  burden,  and  still  others  take  the  place  of  dumb 
machines.  They  are  specially  adapted  to  act  as 
wheels  for  light  carriages.  The  axles  of  the  car- 
riage are  terminated  at  each  end  with  a  six  prong- 
ed fork,  the  prongs  arranged  in  a  circle  or  cylin- 
der so  that  when  a  man  is  to  play  the  role  of 
wheel,  he  is  impaled  on  this  fork  one  prong  of  it 
fitting  snugly  between  each  pair  of  his  legs.  A 
vehicle  of  this  kind  is  specially  adapted  for  soft 
roads  as  the  broad  disc  like  feet  prevent  sinking. 

The  king  has  a  phaeton  mounted  on  twelve 
foot  specimens  of  these  lively  wheels,  in  which  he 
dashes  around  at  a  thirty  or  forty  mile  gait  when 
the  fancy  strikes  him.  He  also  has  a  royal  barge 
propelled  by  the  same  sort  of  wheels,  the  legs 
acting  as  paddles. 

The  king  is  imitated  in  his  fads  by  the  nobility 
and  gentry  as  far  as  they  are  able,  and  so  one 
may  quite  often  see  these  live  wheel  phaetons,  and 
live-paddle  boats  moving  about. 

On  the  public  roads,  vehicles  are  used  having 


233  TIlc  Lunar  lath  Professor 

wheels  such  as  you  use,  and  drawn  by  these  creat- 
ures, yoked  together  in  pairs  by  the  pronged  shafts 
or  axles  like  those  I  just  described.  From  5  to 
10  pairs  may  sometimes  be  seen  tugging  at  one  of 
these  heavy  freight  Avagons.  They  are  tremend- 
ously strong  and  their  strength  counts  for  vastly 
more  on  the  planet  Mars  than  it  would  on  the 
earth,  because  ]}.Iars  being  so  much  smaller  every- 
thing weighs  very  much  less.  I  have  seen  some 
of  those  big  fellows  after  rolling  a  few  hundred 
yards  with  great  speed  give  a  leap  from  the  ground 
and  fly  whirling  through  the  air  for  two  hundred 
feet  before  they  lit." 

*'They  are  a  wonderful  race,'*  said  I,  *'but  it 
seems  difficult  to  connect  intelligence  with  a  tribe 
of  star  fishes  or  to  imagine  they  could  ever  be- 
come highly  developed.  You  know  those  we  have 
on  earth  are  very  low  in  the  scale  of  existence." 

** Intelligence,"  said  the  Professor,  *'does  not 
depend  on  the  form.  Any  form  on  which  it  is 
possible  for  the  forces  of  the  environment  such  as 
light  heat  contact  etc.,  to  make  an  impression,  al- 
ready has  intelligence;  the  ability  to  be  impressed 
is  intelligence.  If  any  organism  can  be  impressed, 
then  if  you  give  it  time  enough  it  can  be  im- 
pressed indefinitely,  because  each  impression  dif- 
ferentiates it  and  adds  to  its  sensitiveness,  that  is, 
its  ability  to  be  further  impressed.  The  reason 
why  inferior  races  so  generally  remain  inferior  is 
the  jealousy  and  hostility  of  the  superior.  The 
dominant  race  is  always  hostile  to  any  other  race 
that  shows  any  intelligence,  and  proceeds  to  kill 
it  ofi;  for  fear  it  will  become  a  rival.     It  is  thus 


Mars  and  the  Martians  233 

that  the  race  of  man  has  no  rivals  that  compare 
with  him  in  intelligence,  no  ''connecting  links"  be- 
tween him  and  the  monkeys.  He  was  jealous  of 
them  and  exterminated  them. 

On  the  planet  Mars  there  were  never  any  forms 
of  animal^  superior  to  the  stars  so  they  have  re- 
ceived all  the  development.  Their  differentiation 
would  have  advanced  further  if  the  planet  itself 
had  not  been  so  backward.  It  has  a  great  deal 
more  water  on  it  in  proportion  to  its  size  than  the 
earth.  It  is  destitute  of  high  mountains,  and  very 
much  of  its  surface  is  but  little  raised  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.  A  great  deal  of  it  is  marshy.  It 
is  only  in  recent  geologic  times  that  it  has  become 
well  suited  to  life  on  land.  When  it  became  so, 
the  star  fxshes  crawled  out,  and  by  degrees  be- 
came accustomed  to  that  mode  of  life  as  well  as 
their  aquatic  mode.  If  there  had  been  any  land 
animals  there  to  attack  them  when  they  first  vent- 
ured to  leave  the  water,  of  course  they  would  have 
been  prevented  from  ever  rising.  But  there  were 
no  enemies  and  they  gradually  developed  lungs 
by  which  they  were  enabled  to  live  continuously 
out  of  water.  At  first  they  crawled  about  like 
spiders  with  all  their  feet  on  the  ground  at  once, 
but  after  awhile  they  learned  to  raise  themselves 
up  on  edge  and  finally  to  roll  from  one  foot  to 
another,  and  so  gradually  adopted  a  new  and 
wonderfully  advanced  mode  of  locomotion. 

They  are  still  semiaquatic  and  amphibious,  and 
they  have  both  lungs  and  gills.  They  do  not  bring 
forth  their  young  alive,  but  the  female  lays  eggs 
in  the  water,  the  wealthy    families    having    little 


234  The  Lunarian   Professor 

tanks  kept  at  a  proper  temperature.  The  females 
of  the  poor  and  rougher  classes  simply  go  to  the 
nearest  pond  and  deposit  their  eggs  and  leave  them 
to  their  fate.  Nine  times  out  of  ten,  however,  the 
warmth  of  the  water  is  sufficient  to  hatch  out  the 
tiny  stars  which  swim  around  in  the  water  without 
any  care  or  bother  to  their  parents.  They  then 
use  only  their  gills  for  breathing,  but  in  a  few 
weeks  their  lungs  are  developed  enough  to  permit 
them  to  crawl  out  on  land  and  remain  awhile.  They 
do  this  daily  and  finally  are  able  to  remain  out 
continuously.  Some  of  the  lowest  classes,  the 
savages  as  the  are  called,  never  lose  their  gills, 
but  continue  to  be  amphibious  all  their  lives.  They 
spend  their  days  on  shore  and  mingle  with  the 
rest,  but  at  night  retire  to  the  water  in  which  they 
sleep  and  eat,  feeding  upon  a  tender  and  nutri- 
tious grass  that  groAvs  in  the  water  and  in  marshy 
places.  This  grass  also  constitutes  a  considerable 
part  of  the  food  of  the  better  classes,  but  they 
generally  cook  it.  In  winter  time  these  savages 
burrow  in  the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  the  ponds  and 
marshes  and  canals  and  go  into  a  sort  of  torpid 
condition  and  remain  there  till  spring.  The  more 
advanced  classes  cannot  do  this,  they  remain  out 
of  the  water  continuously  after  they  are  fairly 
weaned  from  it,  and  lose  the  use  of  their  gills  so 
that  they  cannot  breathe  under  water  at  all.  So 
there  is  almost  as  much  difference  between  differ- 
ent varieties  of  these  strange  people  so  far  as  civili- 
zation is  concerned  as  between  men  and  some  of 
their  domestic  animals. 

''Professor,"  said  I,  "a  moment  ago  you  men- 


Mars  and  the  Martians  235 

tioned  the  canals.  Our  astronomers  have  seen 
these  and  puzzled  themselves  greatly  in  regard  to 
them,  now  you  can  tell  me  all  about  them  I  am 
sure." 

"Yes,  I  intended  to  tell  you  about  them,  I  un- 
derstand their  history  well.     That's  where  Vv^e  sunk 
our  money,  or  at  least  a  great  part  of  it." 
''What,  in  the  canals?" 
'*Yes — that  is,  in  their  construction." 
*'Do   you  mean   that   the   Lunarians   went   and 
dug  those  canals  on  Mars  ? ' ' 

''I  will   explain.     As  I  said   awhile   ago   when 
our  folks  first  visited  Mars  the  people  were  in  a 
very    barbarous    state,    but    still    seemed    to    have 
some  idea  of  bettering  their  condition.     They  were 
much  impressed  by  the  superiority  of  the  Lunarians 
and   were   anxious   to    get   their   advice   as  to   the 
best  way  of  improving  their  own  situation.     The 
inhabitants  then  all  lived  along  the  shores  of  the 
seas  while  the  interior  of  the  continents  were  un- 
inhabited and  for  the  most  part  unexplored.     The 
Lunarians   by   the   help   of   their   v/ings   and   their 
repulsio-gravitation    cars    were    in    a    position    to 
make  the  exploration  and  in  a  short  time  gained 
a    general    knowledge    of    the    topography    of    the 
planet.     They  found  high  land  over  both  the  poles, 
but    all    the    middle    parts    are    lov/.      There    were 
numerous    ponds    and    lakes   of   fresh   water,    with 
marshy  outlets  to  the  seas,  which  are  very  salty. 
There  were  no  rivers  except  a  few  small  ones  in 
the  high  lands.     As  the  Martians  were  amphibious 
and   had   always    been    accustomed   to    salt   water, 
the  Lunarians  doubted  whether  they  could  live  in 


236  The  Lunarian   Professor 

the  interior  where  the  water  was  fresh.  But  they 
saw  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  scatter  the  peo- 
ple away  from  the  sea  shore,  divert  their  thoughts 
from  war  by  finding  peaceful  occupations  for  them, 
and  to  create  artificial  wants  for  them  since  their 
very  few  natural  wants  were  all  bountifully  sup- 
plied w^ith  little  or  no  effort  on  their  part.  The 
climate  of  Mars  is  much  like  that  of  the  temperate 
parts  of  the  earth,  but  its  polar  regions  are  never 
so  cold  nor  its  equatorial  regions  so  hot. 

In  summer  time  these  people  had  no  use  for 
clothes,  for  it  was  warm  enough  without  them.  In 
winter  they  had  ahvays  gone  into  winter  quarters 
under  water  remaining  in  a  torpid  inactive  con- 
dition till  spring.  When  they  found  the  Lunarians 
never  did  so,  they  v.-ere  anxious  to  imitate  them. 
But  they  could  not  stand  the  cold  without  clothes 
and  houses  artificially  heated.  So  some  rude  cloth- 
ing was  made  of  grass,  and  some  huts  built  under 
instructions  from  the  Lunarians  and  the  king  and 
some  of  the  better  classes  undertook  to  keep  alive, 
as  they  called  it,  all  winter.  They  were  quick  to 
perceive  that  they  could  thus  add  much  time  to 
their  lives,  for  the  winters  of  i\Iars  last  some  300 
days  out  of  the  687  that  constitute  his  year.  At 
first  it  Avas  hard  to  work  into  the  new  way,  but  af- 
ter one  or  two  generations  had  been  kept  from 
hibernating  from  childhood,  it  came  to  be  a  second 
nature  to  their  descendants,  and  now  all  the  better 
classes  have  outgrov/n  it,  only  the  savages,  who 
are  merely  beasts  of  burden  continue  to  go  into 
the  torpid  state  and  not  all  of  these.  This  change 
of  nature  in  these  people,  made  it  essential  to  have 


Mars  and  the  Martians  23? 

houses  and  clothes  and  also  to  secure  food  to  be 
kept  through  the  winter  thus  creating  the  wants 
that  would  compel  the  people  to  employ  their  mus- 
cles and  brains,  and  so  insure  their  cultivation  and 
development.  The  chief  food  of  the  people  con- 
sisted of  the  grass  I  have  mentioned  which  grows 
only  in  water  and  at  that  time  only  in  salt  water. 
It  grows  in  thick  pulpy  stems  and  is  very  rich  in 
sugar  oil  and  gelatine.  This  vegetable  product 
was  obtainable  only  along  the  sea  shore  in  shal- 
low water  and  in  salt-water  marshes  formed  by 
the  sea.  The  new  way  of  life  demanded  at  least 
one  half  more  food  than  the  old  for  each  person, 
and  it  also  led  to  a  rapid  increase  in  the  popula- 
tion. These  causes  made  it  essential  to  devise 
some  way  of  increasing  the  production  of  food, 
the  most  obvious  way  being  the  increase  of  the 
area  of  shallow  salt  water.  This  the  king  under- 
took to  do,  but  made  small  progress,  for  neither 
he  nor  his  council  knew  anything  about  engineering, 
or  the  management  of  such  works. 

The  Lunarians  who  had  been  observing  matters 
and  things,  and  studying  the  situation  very  close- 
ly and  shrewdly,  now  came  forward  with  a  pro- 
position for  a  very  comprehensive  scheme  of  public 
works — or  rather  several  schemes  in  one. 


238  Til e  Lun ar ia n  Professor 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Canals. 

First  was  a  plan  for  increasing  the  salt  water 
area  by  means  of  a  system  of  broad  channels  or 
canals  reaching  inland  from  the  oceans  with  a 
view  of  extending  them  from  ocean  to  ocean  as 
soon  as  practicable  so  as  to  enable  the  tidal  cur- 
rents to  flow  entirely  through,  thus  insuring  sea 
w^ater  in  the  very  interior.  It  was  proposed  to 
make  these  narrow  at  first,  but  to  widen  them  as 
the  population  increased  and  greater  area  became 
necessary  for  cultivation.  After  the  main  canals 
should  have  become  well  advanced  it  was  design- 
ed to  build  branches  and  intersecting  lines  in  such 
directions  as  might  be  deemed  most  advantageous. 

The  Lunarians  proposed  to  the  king  to  have  this 
work  done  by  a  great  stock  company,  one-half  the 
stock  to  be  ov/ned  by  the  king  and  the  other  half 
by  them.  They  were  to  make  the  surveys  and 
direct  the  work  and  handle  the  funds  of  the  cor- 
poration making  use  of  their  mechanical  and  ex- 
ecutive ability  and  great  experience  in  finance  and 
engineering.  The  government  was  to  pay  a  bonus 
to  this  company  of  100  kiks*  per  acre  for  every 
acre   made   available  for   cultivation.     The   capital 


A  Kik  is  worth  about   lo  cents  American  money. 


The  Canals  239 

stock  was  fixed  at  200  kiks  per  acre  to  be  issued 
to  the  stockholders  as  fast  as  the  work  was  com- 
pleted, the  king  to  receive  100  kiks  as  his  share 
and  the  Lunarians  the  other  100.  As  fast  as  the 
canals  were  completed  they  were  to  be  turned  over 
to  the  state  and  become  its  property,  and  in  pay- 
ment for  this  the  state  was  to  guarantee  an  an- 
nual dividend  or  interest  of  five  per  cent  on  that 
portion  of  the  capital  stock  owned  by  the  Lunar- 
ians. The  king  was  not  well  informed  on  finan- 
cial matters  and  inquired  the  meaning  of  five  per 
cent  interest,  and  was  told  that  it  meant  the  pay- 
ment of  half  a  kik  to  the  owner  of  every  ten  kiks 
of  stock  which  such  owner  was  to  receive  in  lieu 
of  all  other  profits  and  reward  for  his  labor  and 
investment  and  vhich  he  the  king  as  the  head  of 
the  government  was  to  guarantee.  The  king  was 
satisfied  to  do  this — more  than  satisfied  in  fact. 

He  said:  *' Gentlemen,  I  am  a  great  King!  what 
care  I  for  half  a  kik."  Then  with  a  prodigal 
wave  of  all  his  disengaged  limbs  he  exclaimed 
*'make  it  a  whole  kik." 

But  our  Lunarians  were  not  to  be  outdone  in 
liberality  by  the  king,  and  while  admitting  that 
five  per  cent  was  ridiculously  small,  modestly  de- 
clined to  take  any  more.  The  king  then  inquired 
why  they  did  not  include  his  stock  in  the  proposed 
guaranty.  "Why  should  not  I  be  guaranteed  as 
well  as  you?"  To  this  they  replied  that  they 
purposely  left  his  out  because,  first,  he  was  him- 
self the  government,  and  so  he  would  simply  be 
guaranteeing  himself;  in  the  second  place,  if  his 
stock  were  not  named  in  this   guarantee  he  need 


240  The  Lunarian    Professor 

not  be  confined  to  5  per  cent,  but  could  as  well 
take  10  or  20.  The  king  having  been  satisfied  on 
this  point  they  cautiously  unfolded  their  next  pro- 
position which  was  that  they  should  have  security 
in  the  shape  of  a  mortgage  for  the  payment  of  the 
5  per  cent  interest,  and  that  in  case  of  default  on 
the  payment  of  said  interest  it  should  become  a 
lien  against  the  state  and  thence  forward  be  en- 
titled to  draw  interest  the  same  as  the  original 
stock.  *'0  king,"  said  they,  **we  sincerely  wish 
you  might  live  forever.  If  v/e  were  sure  you  would 
we  would  never  think  of  asking  security.  But 
Martians  and  Lunarians  all  die  when  their  time 
comes,  while  this  great  corporation  will  be  im- 
mortal. Some  time  in  the  future  a  king  may  arise 
who,  while  enjoying  the  blessings  and  comforts  of 
civilization  will  forget  what  they  w^ere  due  to  and 
w^ill  refuse  to  carry  out  Your  Majesty's  contract, 
about  pajang  this  interest." 

**Well,"  said  the  King,  *'what  security  do  you 
want?" 

They  said  they  would  be  contented  with  a  mort- 
gage covering  Faithless  Jack  and  Blind  Lucy,  and 
the  two  frigid  zones  of  Mars." 

I  may  say  here  that  the  frigid  zones  of  Mars 
cover  the  polar  ends  of  the  planet  and  extend  28°. 
42'  from  the  poles.  I  understood  this  much,  but 
did  not  know  who  were  meant  by  Faithless  Jack 
and  Blind  Lucy.  The  Professor  proceeded  to  ex- 
plain. 

**Mars  as  you  know  has  two  funny  little  moons. 
Your  Astronomers  have  named  them  Deimos  and 
Phobos.    But  the  Martians  call  them  by  names  that 


The  Canals  241 

are  equivalent  to  Faithless  Jack  and  Blind  Lucy. 
These  names  belong  to  an  ancient  mythical  legend, 
which  I  will  relate  to  you.  In  very  ancient  times 
there  were  a  pair  of  lovers  named  Jack  and  Lucy. 
Lucy  was  reputed  to  be  the  most  beautiful  lady 
that  ever  walked  on  six  feet.  Her  six  eyes  were 
quite  unique,  being  alternately  red  and  yellow — 
three  of  each  color.  She  was  over  eight  feet  high 
when  she  stood  up  and  was  noted  for  the  grace 
and  dignity  of  her  menners,  and  the  captivating 
way  in  v/hich  she  walked,  her  feet  coming  down 
one  after  another  in  perfect  time  and  with  a  ryth- 
mic pit-a-pat  pit-a-pat  almost  inaudible  from  the 
softness  of  her  tread,  but  which  was  nothing  less 
than  inspired  music.  Her  disposition  Vv^as  as  charm- 
ing as  her  porson.  She  had  a  kind  v/ord  for  every 
one,  and  was  always  doing  som.e  one  a  favor. 

Jack  on  the  other  hand  was  exceedingly  ill 
favored.  It  could  not  be  said  exactly  that  he 
was  the  ugliest  or  the  most  disagreeable  young 
gentleman  in  the  community,  but  a  great  many 
v/ere  his  superiors  in  every  wa:/,  and  how  it  hap- 
pened that  Lucy  fell  in  love  with  him  could  never 
be  accounted  for,  but  she  did,  to  an  excessive  de- 
gree. To  look  at  the  Martians  you  might  not 
suspect  them  of  being  very  sentimental  or  affec- 
tionate, but  they  are,  and  their  form  in  a  manner 
compels  them  to  be  demonstrative.  AMien  a  couple 
walk  together  they  cannot  lock  arms  or  take 
hold  of  each  other's  hands  as  you  do,  since  their 
limbs  are  all  employed  in  walking.  But  if  they 
are  friends  they  hold  on  to  each  others  cheeks 
with  their  lips,  which  have  a  suctorial  force  like 


242  The   Lunarian  Professor 

an  air  pump  and  which  would  raise  a  blister  on 
a  skin  less  tough  than  the  intogunient  of  a  Mar- 
tian. AVhen  lovers  walk  out  with  each  other  they 
apply  their  lips  together  in  an  affectionate  kiss 
of  most  uncommon  adhesiveness.  Jack  and  Lucy 
they  say  could  have  been  seen  any  day  walking 
about  glued  together  in  that  manner.  As  this  was 
common  it  was  considered  proper,  but  under  the 
circumstances  was  not  altogether  prudent,  for  it 
roused  the  jealousy  of  Jack's  rivals  to  an  almost 
murderous  pitch.  Jack  was  not  so  tall  as  Lucy 
by  a  foot,  being  only  a  little  over  seven  feet  high. 
This  brought  his  mouth  six  inches  lower  than  hers, 
and  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  elevate  himself 
on  his  toes  (or  fingers)  as  much  as  possible,  and 
even  then  Lucy  had  to  meet  him  half  way  by  bend- 
ing the  limbs  that  happened  to  support  her  at  the 
moment  in  a  manner  that  detracted  considerably 
from  her  natural  grace.  Some  of  the  disappointed 
lovers  attempted  to  relieve  their  chagrin  by  speak- 
ing of  Jack  contemptuously  as  *' Tiptoes"  and  mak- 
ing ungallant  remarks  about  Lucy.  But  this  was 
small  comfort  to  them,  vrhile  the  loving  pair  were 
so  much  devoted  to  each  other  as  to  be  quite  heed- 
less of  the  angry  and  jealous  comment  they  were 
causing. 

At  last  Jack's  rivals  entered  into  a  conspiracy 
to  *'do  him  up."  They  would  beat  and  tar  and 
feather  him  at  the  very  least  and  if  he  provoked 
them  by  resistance  they  would  do  worse.  So  they 
planned,  and  one  summer  evening  when  Jack  and 
Lucy  were  taking  their  usual  loving  promenade, 
these   disappointed   suitors   took    after   them.      Hut 


The  Canals  243 

the  lovers  stimulated  by  a  panic  of  sudden  terror 
made  a  miraculous  race  and  distanced  their  pur- 
suers. The  latter  declared  that  the  lovers  did  not 
run  at  all  in  fact,  but  glided  along  in  some  mira- 
culous way  not  touching  the  ground,  but  gradually 
rising  and  sailing  off  getting  constantly  higher  and 
higher,  they  at  last  disappeared  behind  a  cloud. 
And  they  all  declared  that  there  could  not  be  the 
least  doubt  that  they  had  been  translated  to  the 
sky  to  associate  with  the  innumerable  stars  that 
had  gone  before  them.  There  was  nothing  at  all 
incredible  in  this  to  the  Martian  people,  because 
it  was  a  cardinal  principle  of  their  religion  that 
their  great  heroes  in  ancient  times  had  all  been 
transferred  from  Mars  to  the  sky.  The  proof  was 
patent  to  anybody  that  had  eyes,  for  there  they 
were  to  be  seen  without  any  change  of  form,  some 
with  six  radiating  limbs  and  some  with  five.  And 
these  two  hostile  races  carried  their  resentments 
to  heaven  with  them  and  often  engaged  in  direful 
warfare,  hurling  at  each  other  thunderbolts,  me- 
teors and  aerolites  as  might  be  seen  almost  daily 
or  nightl}^  The  celestial  history  of  the  lovers  is 
tragic.  They  no  longer  had  to  walk,  because  there 
beijig  nothing  much  to  walk  on,  the  celestial  mode 
of  locomotion  is  a  delicious  glide,  consequently 
they  were  able  occasionally  to  give  their  lips  a  rest, 
and  hand  in  hand  to  quietly  slip  along  with  the 
glittering  crowd  thinking  of  nothing  whatever 
unless  it  were  of  each  other.  But  this  happiness 
at  last  came  to  a  sad  ending.  They  were  saunter- 
ing along  as  thoughtless  and  careless  as  children, 
when  suddenly  and  without  the  least  warning,  an 


244:  Tlie  TAinarinn    Professor 

immense  aerolite  came  clashing  through  the  sky 
and  before  Lucy  even  perceived  it,  it  crashed  into 
her  face  knocking  out  every  one  of  her  pretty 
eyes,  smashing  her  lips  and  disfiguring  her  in  the 
most  terrible  manner.  In  the  confusion  she  was 
separated  from  her  companion,  and  when  she 
sought  him,  distracted  by  pain  and  blindness  she 
took  the  wrong  track,  and  from  that  day  to  this 
she  skurries  across  the  sky  in  the  most  feverish 
haste,  rising  in  the  v^est  sailing  overhead  and 
setting  in  the  east  from  two  to  three  tim.es  a  day, 
while  all  the  other  stars  including  the  sun,  and 
Jack  with  the  rest,  rise  in  the  east  and  set  in  the 
west.  As  for  Jack,  when  he  found  how  changed 
and  hideous  she  had  become — his  love  turned  to 
aversion.  Yvlien  she  sought  him,  he  avoided  her, 
and  passed  by  far  on  the  other  side.  And  now, 
although  they  pass  each  other  every  few  hours 
he  always  looks  the  other  way  and  she,  poor  thing, 
cannot  see  him.  ''There  used  to  be  a  serious  dis- 
pute among  the  Martians  as  to  the  particular  sort 
of  star  that  threw  that  rock.  One  sect  of  theolo- 
gians stoutly  maintained  that  it  was  hurled  with 
malicious  intent  by  a  malignant  five  legged  star, 
and  struck  the  fair  mark  it  was  aimed  at  .with 
terrible  precision.  Another  sect  held  that  it  was 
only  an  accident ;  the  missile  was  probably  fired 
by  a  friendly  six  pointer,  missed  its  mark  and  un- 
fortunately struck  where  it  was  not  intended  to. 
As  there  was  not  a  particle  of  proof  for  either 
side,  affirmations  and  assertions  took  the  place 
of  argument,  and  were  dogmatically  made  and 
maintained  with  no  little  acrimony  on  both  sides 


The  Canals  ^45 

But  they  all  agreed  in  rendering  divine  honors  to 
Lucy  with  their  sympathies  and  condolences:  Poor 
Lucy!    Perfidious  Jack! 

When  the  King  learned  what  the  Lunarians 
wanted  him  to  give  them  a  mortgage  on,  he  laugh- 
ed heartily  and  thought  it  a  good  joke.  He  could 
hardly  he  made  to  believe  they  were  in  earnest. 
'^As  10-^  the  poles  if  there  is  anything  there  ex- 
cept snow  and  rocks,"  said  he,  'Svhoever  gets 
them  will  earn  them,  I  warrant  you. 

As  for  the  moons,  I  shall  never  undertake  to 
deliver  them  in  case  you  foreclose  on  them,  and 
your  mortgage  must  distinctly  state  that  you  are 
to   take  them  running." 

The  King  thought  the  idea  of  mortgaging  his 
moons  was  peculiarly  comical;  and  after  the  deal 
was    consumated    and   the    papers    all    signed,    he 
would  sometimes  stand  on  the  door  step  and  call 
out  to  Lucy  as  she  rushed    along    overhead    with 
the  speed  of  a  cannon  ball,  and  ask  her  how  she 
felt  to  be  mortgaged.     In  addition  to  the  scheme 
for  the  construction  of  the  canals,  the  Lunarians 
asked  and  easily  obtained  a  charter  or  concession 
from  the  king  for  an   easement  or  right  of  v,^ay 
twenty  miles  wide,  ten  miles  on  each  side  of  the 
equator,  and  reaching  entirely  around  the  planet, 
for  the  purpose  of  one  or  more  lines  of  telegraph 
and  cables  for  the  conveyance  of  electrical  power 
and  for  railroads  etc.    This  region  was  entirely  un- 
inhabited,   and   not   suited   for   the   occupation   of 
Martians,  but  the  Lunarians  said  they  would  have 
use  for  it  in  the  course  of  time  and  wished  to  have 


246  The  Lunarian  Professor 

it  understood  so  they  could  know  what  to  depend 
on. 

All  the  preliminary  negotiations  being  at  last 
concluded,  and  the  contracts  signed,  they  went  to 
work  with  a  will.  The  bonus  or  subsidy  of  100 
kiks  per  acre  was  raised  by  taxation,  those  who 
had  no  money  being  compelled  to  work  out  their 
tax  on  the  canal.  The  route  selected  for  the  first 
line  was  across  a  low  swampy  country.  The  work 
was  light  and  much  of  it  in  the  water  where  the 
Martians  were  at  home.  The  Lunarians  had  flat 
boats  constructed  on  which  the  excavated  muck 
and  earth  v/ere  loaded  and  floated  to  the  deep 
places  which  they  partially  filled  up  or  deposited 
on  the  dry  land.  The  canal  was  made  200  feet 
v/ide  at  first,  one-half  of  which  was  kept  entirely 
clear,  while  the  other  half  was  planted  to  the 
sea-weed. 

It  took  several  years  to  finish  the  first  line, 
and  as  soon  as  it  was  done  they  commenced  the 
work  of  widening  it,  adding  a  strip  200  feet  in 
width,  which  vrhen  completed  made  the  canal  400 
feet  wide.  This  process  was  then  repeated  and 
has  been  going  on  constantly  not  only  in  the  first 
canals  but  in  all  subsequenc  ones  of  which  there  is 
an  immense  number.  As  much  material  was  carried 
to  the  banks  and  deposited  there  in  the  construc- 
tion of  each  strip,  a  good  deal  had  to  be  moved 
more  than  once.  When  this  accumulation  became 
too  great  to  be  profitably  moved  it  was  skipped 
and  the  next  channel  constructed  parallel  with 
the  main  canal,  but  separated  from  it  by  the  strip 
of  solid  land  on  which  this  waste  earth  was  piled 


The  Canals  217 

from  a  few  rods  to  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  width. 
On  these  strips  are  located  the  villages  of  the 
working  people  that  cultivate  the  sea  weed,  work 
on  the  canal  and  are  engaged  in  navigation  etc. 

The  total  width  of  some  of  these  canals  is  now 
as  much  as  sixty  miles,  but  they  generally  consist 
in  reality  of  numerous  wide  channels  separated  by 
narrow  strips  of  land.  This  plan  of  canal  mak- 
ing has  been  steadily  adhered  to  for  several  thou- 
sand years.  Lines  parallel  to  each  other  and  sev- 
eral hundred  miles  apart  have  been  constructed, 
and  many  others  connecting  with  these  and  inter- 
secting them  at  various  angles.  These  canals  not 
only  constitute  the  principal  fields  for  the  culti- 
vation of  their  staple  food,  but  also  furnish  what 
was  for  a  long  time  their  best  and  chief  mode  of 
transportation.  Their  chief  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing cities  sprung  up  at  the  intersections  of 
the  canals. 

The  building  of  these  canals  had  a  wonderfully 
stimulating  effect  on  the  development  of  the  Mar- 
tian people.  The  population  promptly  increased 
in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  means  for  its 
support  as  it  always  does,  on  all  planets.  With 
the  increase  of  population  came  diversity  of  em- 
ployment, new  ideas,  tastes,  and  wants,  new  inven- 
tions more  culture  and  refinement." 

''How  did  the  Lunarians  come  out  on  their  con- 
tract ?'*  I  asked.  ''They  must  have  made  a  lot 
of  money  I  reckon." 

"I  was  just  coming  to  that,"  said  he.  "Yes 
they  made  lots  of  money  if  they  could  only  have 
got   it,   but  that  was  the  rub.     For   a  few  years 


248  The  Lunarian  Professor 

while  the  amount  of  the  acreage  of  the  canals  was 
small,  it  was  comparatively  easy  to  raise  and  pay 
over  the  five  per  cent  due  the  Lunarians,  but  by 
the  time  the  first  great  canal  was  completed 
through  at  a  width  of  200  feet,  their  interest 
amounted  to  375,000  kiks  per  annum.  By  this 
time  the  king  had  discovered  a  good  many  new 
uses  for  money,  and  it  went  very  much  against  the 
grain  to  pay  over  this  interest.  He  began  to  think 
the  Lunarians  were  going  to  be  rather  too  well 
paid  for  the  services  and  ''investment,"  they  had 
talked  about;  and  he  congratulated  himself  that 
they  had  not  availed  themselves  of  his  effusive  of- 
fer ,of  ten  per  cent  instead  of  five.  However 
v/hile  he  grumbled,  he  paid;  and  continued  to  do 
so  as  long  as  he  lived,  although  towards  the  last 
the  interest  amounted  to  the  very  handsome  sum 
of  1,000,000  kiks  per  annum.  But  that  is  all,  af- 
ter the  death  of  that  king  who  is  yet  affectionately 
referred  to  by  the  Martians  as  the  ''father  of  the 
canals,"  the  Lunarians  for  7,000  years  never  got 
a  kik.  However,  what  they  had  already  received 
was  enough  to  make  every  member  of  the  colony 
many  times  a  millionaire  if  they  had  divided  it 
amongst  them.  But  this  they  did  not  do.  The 
Lunarians  are  socialists  and  they  regarded  this 
money  as  belonging  to  the  whole  Lunarian  race,  to 
those  at  home  on  the  moon  as  much  as  to  them- 
selves. They  invested  it  to  the  best  advantage  in 
various  enterprises,  consuming  on  themselves  only 
what  their  simple  and  modest  personal  wants  re- 
quired. The  bonus  or  subsidy  of  100  kiks  per 
acre  generally  paid  the  entire  cost  of  construction 


The  Canals  ^49 

and  the  Lunarians  had  their  interest  money.  At 
the  death  of  the  king  there  was  one  year's  interest 
due  amounting  to  1,000,000  kiks.  The  successor 
to  the  throne  was  not  satisfied  with  the  contract  to 
pay  a  dividend  on  the  stock  the  Lunarians  held  in 
the  canals,  and  in  fact  repudiated  it  all  except  the 
1,000,000  kiks  then  due  which  he  said  he  would 
pay  when  he  got  around  to  it.  But  he  never  did, 
and  the  claim  continued  to  draw  interest  which 
was  computed  and  audited  at  the  beginning  of  each 
subsequent  reign,  but  always  put  off  for  some  rea- 
son or  other  and  not  paid." 

**Why  didn't  they  foreslose  their  mortgage?" 
I  asked. 

''Well  they  did  not  want  to  do  that  until  they 
were  ready  to  improve  the  property  so  as  to  make 
it  earn  something.  They  reasoned  that  the  canal 
claim,  as  it  was  called,  was  making  money  at  a 
tremendous  rate.  The  interest  on  it  2,000  years 
ago  or,  over  6,000  years  after  the  work  on  the 
canals  was  commenced,  amounted  to  thousands  of 
millions  of  kiks  every  minute,  and  they  had  not 
been  able  to  devise  any  plan  by  which  they  could 
make  any  satisfactory  use  of  the  mortgaged  prop- 
erty; and  so  they  let  the  money  remain  in  the 
canal  fund." 

''But,"  said  I,  "suppose  it  was  earning  so  many 
millions  of  kiks,  I  don't  see  what  good  it  did  them 
if  they  never  got  it." 

"Why  you  see,"  he  replied,  "they  got  out  of 
it  in  that  shape,  all  they  could  have  got  if  the 
money  had  been  in  their  hands.  And  it  was  safe. 
It  could  not  be  stolen  and  nobody  would  be  tempt- 


250  The  Lunarian  Professor' 

ed  to  assasinate  the  owners  in  order  to  get  it. 
AVhen  people  have  such  enormous  fortunes  they 
can  come  into  personal  contact  with  only  a  small 
portion  of  them.  An  individual  owning  many  mil- 
lions can  only  use  on  himself  a  few  hundreds  or 
thousands,  and  the  rest  of  it  buys  him  nothing 
but  the  respect  homage,  consideration,  obsequious- 
ness and  sycophancy  of  the  crowd.  For  all  this 
he  does  not  have  to  pay  a  cent,  but  must  own  or 
be  supposed  to  own  millions.  The  funds  which 
our  Lunarians  owned  in  canal  stock  made  them 
the  lions  of  Mars.  Their  personal  abilities,  accom- 
plishments and  graces  would  have  done  that  any- 
way, w^ith  a  certain  class,  but  the  addition  of  all 
that  wealth  gave  them  an  influence  and  considera- 
tion amongst  the  mass  of  people  who  had  no  great 
appreciation  of  any  other  sort  of  merit. 

All  sorts  of  odd  stories  concerning  the  w^ealthy 
foreigners  found  circulation  amongst  the  masses. 
Once  it  was  reported  that  if  the  canal  funds  were 
not  paid  before  the  next  Christmas,  the  Lunarians 
intended  to  fiill  up  all  the  canals  again.  It  was 
well  known  for  ages  that  there  was  not  enough 
money  on  Mars  to  pay  the  canal  debt,  or  even  its 
accumulation  for  one  year.  Not  very  long  ago 
it  became  reported  that  the  Lunarians  had  sold 
their  claims  to  capitalists  on  the  earth,  and  that 
the  latter  were  going  to  get  out  an  attachment 
for  Mars,  bid  it  off  at  sheriff's  sale  and  take  it 
for  another  moon  to  the  earth.  The  story  even 
settled  the  route  it  was  to  run  on — half  waj^  be- 
tween the  earth  and  the  moon." 

''That  was  a  likely  tale  indeed!"  said  L  *'Tliey 


The  Canals  251 

didn't  know  our  capitalists  very  well  or  they 
wouldn't  have  imagined  them  going  into  a  scheme 
that  did  not  promise  to  pay  pretty  big." 

''0,  but  it  was  to  pay  well  as  they  had  it  plan- 
ed. First  the  speculators  were  to  sell  short  for 
future  delivery  all  the  gas  and  standard  oil  stocks 
in  the  world:  then  they  were  to  bargain  with  the 
various  great  cities  to  furnish  additional  moon- 
light at  so  much  for  each  added  moon  power, 
measured  by  our  moon.  They  calculated  that  Mars 
placed  120,000  miles  from  the  earth  would  reflect 
upon  the  earth  16  times  as  much  light  as  the  moon 
does.  This  would  make  the  night  about  as  bright 
as  day.  This  would  reduce  the  value  of  oil  and 
gas  stocks  almost  to  nothing  and  the  speculators 
would  then  buy  them  up  for  delivery  on  their  sale 
contracts  and  make  an  enormous  sum.  The  most 
of  the  Martians  were  keen  for  the  enterprise  to 
be  consumated.  They  said  that  they  would  gain 
more  than  the  earth  by  the  change,  for  both  the 
earth  and  moon  would  act  as  moons  for  Mars,  and 
he  would  get  four  times  as  much  light  from  the 
earth  as  he  would  give  it.  He  would  also  get 
far  more  light  and  heat  from  the  sun  than  he  did 
where  he  was.  ^Vhen  it  was  announced  that  the 
story  was  a  hoax  many  people  were  actually  dis- 
appointed. Others  said  they  were  glad  to  have 
escaped  the  disgrace  of  being  sold  out  at  a  bank- 
rupt sale  and  degraded  from  a  full  fledged  planet 
to  a  mere  satellite  to  be  towed  off  to  play  second 
fiddle  to  another  world." 

''But  how  did  they  think  Mars  was  to  moved 
over  to  the   earth?" 


252  The  Lunarian  Professor 

"0  they  supposed  the  Lunarians  were  going 
to  see  to  that  part  of  it.  They  had  got  the  idea 
the   Lunarians    could   do   anything." 

''But  could  they  have  accomplished  such  an 
undertaking  as  that?" 

"That  question  was  never  settled;  but  they 
would  not  have  done  it  if  they  could.  The  Luna- 
rians always  felt  very  much  mortified  that  the 
moon  is  only  a  satellite  and  not  a  full  planet.  They 
have  got  some  little  satisfaction,  however,  in  the 
great  amount  of  attention,  the  moon  has  always 
received  from  the  people  of  the  earth.  In  old 
times  in  fact  the  earthlings  used  to  pay  divine 
honors  to  our  globe,  as  w^ell  they  might.  But  if 
Mars  were  to  become  a  satellite  of  the  earth  it  is 
easy  to  see  he  would  monopolize  all  the  attention 
that  has  heretofore  been  lavished  on  us.  We 
w^ouldn't  like  that.  No  it  looks  as  if  you  may 
depend  upon  it,  the  Lunarians  would  never  lend 
themselves  to  a  scheme  like  that.  But  a  hoax  like 
that  has  wonderful  vitality. 

A  little  over  a  thousand  years  ago  the  Luna- 
rians began  to  think  of  foreclosing  their  mortgage. 
They  had  the  polar  regions  of  IMars  quietly  explor- 
ed, and  were  agreeably  surprised  to  find  large  de- 
posits of  coal,  iron,  gold,  silver,  tin,  copper  and 
many  other  metals  and  valuable  minerals.  They 
were  already  posted  as  to  the  nature  of  the  little 
moons  Jack-Deimos  and  Lucy-Phobos.  It  was  a 
difficult  and  perilous  task  to  effect  a  landing  on 
them,  but  after  much  effort  it  was  accomplished. 
It  was  found  that  Jack  Deimos,  which  by  the 
wav     is     about     seven     miles     in     diameter     and 


The  Canals  *  ^53 

twenty-two  in  circumference — you  could  ride  clear 
around  it  on  a  bicycle  in  four  hours— is  about  one- 
lialf  iron,  the  rest  rock  containing  gold,  silver,  lead 
and  tin.  Deimos  always  has  the  same  side  turn- 
ed toward  Mars,  and  on  the  opposite  side  is  a  lake 
about  a  mile  in  diameter  and  frozen  solid  to  the 
bottom,  which  melts  down  a  few  inches  every  day 
and  freezes  up  again  at  night.  There  is  a  little 
thin  air,  that  does  not  extend  more  than  one  or 
two  hundred  yards  high.  The  mass  of  this  little 
moon  is  so  small  that  its  attraction  for  anything 
on  it  is  very  slight.  An  ordinary  man  weighs  less 
than  an  ounce.  He  is  considerably  lighter  on  the 
side  toward  Mars  than  he  is  on  the  opposite  side. 
One  might  stand  on  that  side  and  shoot  an  ar- 
row toward  Mars,  and  it  would  not  return  to  him, 
but  continue  its  flight  till  it  reached  the  planet. 
There  is  in  several  places  quite  a  growth  of  a 
hardy  plant  something  like  an  alga,  although  the 
temperature  on  the  shady  side  is  40°  below  0.  It 
is  hot  on  the  sunny  side.  The  difficulty  of  getting 
on  this  little  moon  is  due  to  its  small  attractive 
power.  "When  we  approach  a  large  body,  such  as 
the  Moon  or  Mars  its  attraction  draws  us  after  it 
and  gradually  brings  us  to  its  surface.  But  Dei- 
mos attracts  with  so  little  force  that  we  have  to 
get  up  speed  and  force  from  some  other  body  and 
so  run  alongside  and  catch  him.  He  flies  around 
his  orbit  at  the  astonishing  speed  of  3,610^  miles 
an  hour  or  more  than  50  miles  a  minute.  In  order 
to  get  up  such  a  speed  as  that  our  folks  had  to 
go  off  a  million  miles  from  Mars  in  a  direction 
opposite  to  the  sun  and  then  allow  themselves  to 


!554  The  lAinarian  Professor 

fall  toward  ]\Iars  until  they  were  near  the  orbit 
of  Deimos;  then  they  turned  on  repulsion  which 
sheered  them  off  and  caused  them  to  describe  an 
orbit  around  Mars  in  the  same  direction  as  that 
of  Deimos.  Deimos  passed  them  several  times  be- 
fore they  could  get  into  his  attraction  close  enough 
to  be  pulled  in  by  him. 

They  afterwards  boarded  Lucy-Phobos  in  the 
same  w^ay.  Her  attraction  is  a  little  stronger  than 
Jack's  as  she  is  over  eight  miles  in  diameter.  But 
her  speed  is  still  more  terrific  than  his  as  she  goes 
at  the  rate  of  4,777  miles  an  hour  or  more  than 
79.2  miles  a  minute.  She,  too,  always  presents  the 
same  face  to  Mars. 

Having  made  up  their  minds  how  they  would 
improve  the  property  w^hen  they  got  it,  they  in- 
formed the  King  that  they  desired  to  foreclose  the 
mortgage.  He  made  no  defense  and  instructed  the 
authorities  to  throw  no  obstacles  in  the  way.  The 
foreclosure  was  advertised  in  the  usual  way  and 
when  the  day  of  sale  arrived  there  was  the  usual 
crowd  of  loafers,  but  no  bidders  except  the  Luna- 
rians. They  bid  three  million  kiks  for  the  whole 
outfit — one  million  each  for  the  two  frigid  zones 
and  one  million  for  the  two  satellites,  and  the 
property  was  of  course  knocked  down  to  them, 
considering  the  importance  of  the  sale  it  was  a 
({uiet,  tame  affair. — The  King  was  not  a  little  dis- 
pleased when  he  found  they  had  bid  in  the  prop- 
erty for  less  than  the  billion,  billion,  billionth  part 
of  their  claim,  thus  leaving  the  debt  practically 
unreduced.  He  supposed  they  would  bid  the  face 
of  their  claim  and  thus  wipe  out  the  debt.     Still, 


The   Great  Debt  S55 

however,  he  made  no  attempt  at  redemption;  in 
fact  nobody  would  have  given  any  more  for  the 
property  than  was  bid.  The  title  was  confirmed 
to  them  by  the  court  and  they  entered  into  pos- 
session. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Great  Debt. 

The  King  began  to  be  much  concerned  in  re- 
gard to  the  great  debt.  He  called  his  bankers  to- 
gether and  had  them  compute  it  down  to  date. 
Then  after  brooding  over  the  matter  for  some  days 
he  called  his  council  and  the  Lunarian  claimants 
together  and  made  them  a  speech.  He  declared  he 
was  sick  and  tired  of  ''paying  interest."  True, 
he  had  never  paid  any,  but  it  constantly  added 
to  the  already  most  appalling  debt  to  be  found  in 
the  solar  system.  "In  fact  it  is  so  great  (said  he) 
that  we  have  no  single  words  to  express  it.  ^  It 
is  written  by  setting  down  20  and  then  annexing 
to  that  a  string  of  153  ciphers.  The  original  debt 
left  by  my  illustrious  ancestor  the  father  of  the 
canals  was  1,000,000  kiks,  at  least  that  is  all  his 
successor  assumed,  and  it  is  that  insignificant  sum 
that  has  grown  to  such  overwhelming  proportions. 
Take  20,000,000  septillions  of  kiks  and  multiply 
by  1,000,000  sexteillions ;  multiply  this  product  by  1,- 
000,000  of  quintillions  and  this  by  1,000,000  quadril- 
lions; this  by  1,000,000  millions;  and  finally  mul- 


256  The   Lunarian    Professor 

tiply  this  by  1,000,000.  Now  from  this  inconceiva- 
bly great  sum  subtract  one  kik.  That  kik  is  the 
principal;  all  the  rest  is  interest.  As  the  whole 
principal  was  1,000,000  kiks,  our  whole  debt  is 
1,000,000  times  the  above  sum.*  I  have  for  sev- 
eral days  been  endeavoring  to  master  the  finan- 
cial principal  applicable  to  this  ease.  Our  Luna- 
rian professors  have  told  us  that  the  normal  ad- 
vance of  natural  modes  of  motion  is  by  undula- 
tion, or  the  progressive  rising  and  falling  of  one 
wave  after  another,  as  in  the  ocean,  the  movement 
of  heat  and  light,  the  ebbing  and  flowing  of  the 
tides  etc.  I  have  observed  that  the  same  law  holds 
in  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  It  undulates.  It 
is  lively  awhile,  then  dull.  Business  men  accumu- 
late a  pile,  then  lose  it.  It  is  the  same  with  money 
engaged  in  business,  it  sometimes  gains,  some- 
times loses.  A  man  may  drink  twenty  hogsheads 
of  wine,  but  he  cannot  accumulate  that  much  in- 
side of  him  at  once. 

It  may  be  possible  for  one  little  kik  in  the 
course  of  7,000  years  to  earn  on  Mars  all  the 
wealth  both  real  and  personal  that  there  is  on  all 
the  planets  in  the  solar  system  and  much  more 
besides.  At  any  rate  it  has  done  it  on  paper  ac- 
cording to  the  figures  and  the  claim  of  our  Luna- 
rian friends,  but  evidently  it  could  only  be  done 
by  its  dropping  a  lot  of  it  occasionally  and  earn- 
ing it  over  again.  So  the  undulatory  movement 
applies  here  as  a  physical  necessity.    But  the  pap- 


*     I  have  gone  over  these   figures  and    I    find   the   King 
was  correct.     Author. 


The   Great  Deht  ^ol 

ers  in  this  case  so  far,  represent  only  the  swelling 
of  the  wave  without   the   complementary   sinking 
that  completes  an  undulation,  and  makes  its  con- 
tinued   movement    a    physical    possibility.      These 
papers  relate  only  to  the  ascending  or  crescendo 
half  of  the  wave,  but  fail  to  provide  for  the  di- 
minuendo side  of  it.    This  wave  has  been  swelling 
for  7,000  years.    It  is  high  time  it  had  reached  its 
culmination  or  greatest  amplitude  and  I  think  it 
has.     Seven  is  a  mystic  number  and  in  this  case 
evidently    marks    that    epoch.      Time    alone    was 
competent  to  enable  a  little  kik  to  pile  up  such 
an  accumulation  of  debt  against  us,  and  what  time 
has  done,  time  can  undo. 

I  propose  now  to  issue  a  diminuendo  bond  that 
will  in  the  course  of  7,000  years  reduce  this  debt 
back    to    the   level    it    started    from.     Instead    of 
bearing    interest,    this    bond    will    bear    discount. 
This  discount  the  first  year  will  be  precisely  what 
the  interest  was  the  last,  and  each  year  in  the  de- 
scending future  the  bond  will  be  reduced  to  the 
same  amount  to  which  it  v/as  increased  in  the  year 
as  far  in  the  past  as  it  is  in  the  future  counting 
from  the  date  of  the  bond.  So  that  1,000  years  hence 
the   amount   of   it   will   be   the   same   that   it   was 
1,000  years  ago  and  so  on.     Coupons  shall  be  at- 
tached,  representing   the   amount   of   the   discount 
each  year  which  the  holders  of  the  bonds  shall  de- 
tach and  present  to  the  treasurer  to  be  cancelled. 
Thus  the  debt  will  be  reduced  every  year  and  it 
will  cost  nobody  a  kik. 

At  the  end  of  7,000  years  all  the  accumulation 
of  interest  will  have  been  dissipated  and  only  the 


258  The  Lunarian  Professor 

principal  will  be  left.  This  if  not  paid  then  will 
begin  to  draw  interest  again,  because  by  the  un- 
dulatory  theory,  the  wave  having  reached  its  low- 
est ebb  must  thereafter  rise. 

This  was  the  substance  of  the  king's  speech, 
and  it  was  highlj^  applauded  by  the  whole  assem- 
bly, except  the  Lunarians.  They  said  it  looked 
to  them  like  repudiation,  and  they  told  the  king 
they  feared  it  would  hurt  his  credit  not  only  in 
the  Moon,  but  on  the  Earth,  and  Venus.  Juno.  Pal- 
las, Ceres,  Vesta  and  all  the  rest.  The  King  re- 
plied that  he  would  be  sorry  to  do  anything  that 
would  impair  his  credit  in  the.  other  planets  and 
for  that  reason  would  not  on  any  account  re- 
pudiate. That  was  why  he  gave  this  bond.  If 
he  intended  to  repudiate  he  would  not  need  to 
give  any  bond.  By  this  arrangement  they  would 
get  their  million  kiks  in  the  course  of  time — would 
no  doubt  have  got  them  long  ago — if  that  load 
of  interest  had  not  been  piled  on  top  of  them.  The 
object  of  this  bond  was  to  remove  this  interest. 
According  to  the  undulatory  theory  of  finance 
that  he  had  just  announced,  the  total  amount  of 
loss  of  money  employed  in  business  exactly  equals 
the  total  amount  of  gain,  since  money  does  not 
change  in  amount  by  being  used.  But  in  particu- 
lar cases  there  may  be  net  gains  at  the  expense 
of  loss  somewhere  else.  And  he  said  that  the 
shrewdness  of  the  Lunarians  would  have  insured 
to  them  a  measure  of  net  gain;  but  by  no  possi- 
bility could  it  have  amounted  to  many  times  it- 
self even  in  the  course  of  ages.  **It  is  labor,  not 
money,  that  creates  wealth.     If  you  bury  100  kiks 


Dcimns  and  tlie  Great  Cable  250 

in  the  ground  and  after  a  year  dig  them  up  you 
will  not  find  that  they  have  increased  to  105." 

This  talk  of  the  king  convinced  the  Lunarians 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  pay  the  interest  on  their 
claim  and  as  they  could  not  afford  to  quarrel  with 
him,  they  proposed  a  compromise,  and  it  was 
finally  settled  that  they  should  receive  1,000,000 
kiks  in  addition  to  the  property  they  had  taken 
on  the  foreclosure,  and  a  bond  for  ten  million 
kiks  to  be  paid  at  the  option  of  the  government 
without  interest  or  securit.y.  They  did  not  re- 
gard this  bond  as  very  valuable,  and  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  it  has  not  been  paid  off  to  this  day, 
but  still  constitutes  a  ''claim."  After  all,  how- 
ever, they  did  well  enough  notwithstanding  their 
astounding  loss. 

They  were  now  recognized  as  men  who  througli 
no  fault  of  their  own  had  sunk  the  most  stupend- 
ous   sum   of   money    ever   known   to    exist   in   ono 
fund,   and   this   circumstance   gave  them   as  much 
notoriety   and   almost   as   much  influence   and   im- 
portance,  as   if  they  still  had  to   their   credit  the 
sum  of  20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 
000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 000, 
000,000,000,000,000, 000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, 
000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,  000,000, 
000  kiks. 


Deimos  and  the  Great  Cable. 

These  financial  questions  being  settled  the  Lu- 
narians went  to  work  to  improve  their  new  prop- 


•360  The   Lunarian   Professor 

erty.  They  commenced  work  on  the  south  polar 
region,  opening  extensive  mines  of  coal  and  iron 
and  starting  furnaces  and  rolling  mills.  It  soon 
became  known  what  they  were  up  to,  which  proved 
to  be  nothing  less  than  the  capture  of  Jack-Deimos 
and  setting  him  to  work.  The  first  thing  to  do 
vv^as  to  construct  a  cable  long  enough  to  reach 
from  the  pole  of  Mars  to  Deimos.  Deimos  is 
14,547  miles  from  the  center  of  Mars  and  a  little 
further  from  the  pole  viz  14,690  miles.  The  cable 
was  made  about  25  miles  longer  than  that.  It 
was  composed  of  a  vast  number  of  strands  of 
tremendously  tough  steel  wire  and  put  together  in 
the  most  marvelous  way,  for  they  were  in  small 
bundles  insulated  from  each  other  as  to  the  at- 
traction of  gravitation  and  also  insulated  by  sec- 
tions of  their  length.  By  this  construction  a  part 
of  the  strands  might  be  made  to  be  subject  to  the 
attraction  of  gravitation,  others  alongside  of  them 
to  repulsion,  also  a  strand  might  be  made  sub- 
ject to  attraction  in  one  part  while  in  another  it 
could  be  subject  to  repulsion,  and  these  conditions 
could  be  reversed,  or  all  the  parts  could  be  caus- 
ed to  be  in  the  same  state.  The  effect  of  this  was 
very  remarkable.  "When  the  cable  was  completed 
it  was  stretched  out  a  section  of  one  to  two  hund- 
red miles  at  a  time,  and  tested,  an  alternating 
electrical  battery  being  used  to  alter  the  gravita- 
tional conditions.  By  proper  manipulation,  the 
cable  could  be  made  to  rise  bodily  from  the  ground, 
or  it  could  be  made  to  rise  by  sections,  one  section 
on  the  ground  and  another  humped  up  like  the  back 
of  an  angry  cat,  or  when  lying  down  straight  it 


Deimos  and  the  Great  Cable  261 

could  be  made  to  roll  over,  by  causing  one  side 
to  be  attractive  and  the  other  repelling. 

This  cable  was  eight  inches  in  diameter.  The 
lower  end  was  doubled  on  itself  to  form  an  eye 
five  feet  in  diameter.  The  other  end  for  25  miles 
vras  left  free,  the  wires  all  being  separate  and 
loose  with  balls  of  iron  attached  to  their  ends. 
AYhen  this  end  of  the  cable  was  tested,  a  consider- 
able section,  by  being  subjected  to  repulsion,  rose 
from  the  ground  and  assumed  a  perpendicular 
position,  the  loose  ends  of  the  wire  parting  and  re- 
pelling each  other  like  the  hairs  on  the  head  of  an 
electrified  person.  This  was  what  was  required 
and  the  test  was  pronounced  a  perfect  success. 

Over  the  south  pole  of  Mars  is  a  mountain  some 
8,000  feet  above  the  sea  level.  They  found  the 
exact  pole  not  far  from  the  highest  part  of  this 
mountain  which  was  a  lucky  circumstance.  Here 
they  planted  a  great  steel  shaft  deep  in  the  hard 
rock,  its  end  sticking  up  so  as  to  receive  the  eye 
of  the  cable.  A  good  deal  of  grading  and  level- 
ing off  of  obstructions  that  stood  up  above  the 
proposed  sweep  of  the  cable,  had  to  be  removed. 
But  the  largest  part  of  the  work  was  the  construc- 
tion of  the  circular  railway.  This  railway  was 
built  in  a  circle  around  the  pole  and  285  miles 
distant  from  it.  The  diameter  of  this  circle  was 
570  and  the  length  of  the  road  v»ras  1,791  miles. 
There  were  two  purposes  to  be  served  by  this  road. 
A  person  standing  at  the  pole  of  Mars  cannot  see 
Deimos  on  account  of  the  bulge  or  convex  surface 
of  the  globe.  And  it  is  only  when  he  gets  285 
miles  from  the  pole  that  he  can  look  over  the  bulge 


2&Z  The  Lunarian  Professor 

and  see  the  little  moon.      So   a  rope  drawn  taut 
from    Deimos   to    the    pole    of   the    planet,    would 
drag   on   the   ground   for   the   285   miles   next   the 
pole,  but  outside  of  the  285  miles  the  line  would 
gradually   leave   the   ground.     A  large   heavy   car 
Vv'as  made  to  travel  on  the  railroad  to  hold  up  the 
cable   as   it  swept   around.     Attached  to   this   car 
there  w^as  to   be  a  train  holding  the  dynamos  in 
w^hich  the  power  w^as  to  be  turned  into  electricity. 
When  everything  was  ready  to  hook  on  to  the 
little  moon,  the  cable  was  caused  to  erect  itself  by 
repulsion.     It  tended  to  stand  directly  out  in  line 
with  the  pole  as  if  it  were  a  continuation  of  the 
axis,  and  care  had  to  be  taken  to  prevent  it  slip- 
ing  off  its  shaft  and  going  off  bodily  into  space. 
This   had   been    anticipated   and   provided   against 
however.     After  standing  a  few  hours  under  the 
influence  of  repulsion  it  became  rigid  -and  perfect- 
ly  straight.      One-half   of  the   strands   throughout 
the  whole  length  of  the  cable  except  the  last  twen- 
ty miles  were  now  placed  under  the  influence  of 
attraction  and  the  other  half  under  repulsion.  This 
left  it  still  rigid,  but  indifferent  and  movable  in 
any  direction  by  a  very  small  force  like  a  water 
soaked    log    in    the    water.      Attraction    was    now 
turned  on  a  very  small  portion  of  the  lower  end 
of  the  cable  and  it  began  slowly  to  incline  toward 
the    ground.      AYhen    it    got    down    almost    to    the 
ground  it  was  found  that  the  ground  where  the 
railroad   was   built   was   running   under   the   cable 
from  west  to  east  at  the  rate  of  72J  miles  an  hour. 
Some    very    delicate    manipulation    was    required 
here.     The   cable   by   having  been   erected   at   the 


Deiinos  and  the  Great  Cable  263 

pole  had  no  rotary  motion  as  the  planet  had.  The 
planet  revolved  from  west  to  east  at  the  rate  of 
521.4  miles  an  hour  at  the  equator,  but,  at  the 
circular  railroad  this  was  reduced  to  72.6  miles. 
At  the  pole  of  course  it  was  nothing.  As  the  rail- 
road track  and  the  car  for  carrying  the  cable  were 
whirling  along  at  that  rate  while  the  cable  itself 
was  stationary,  it  became  necessary  to  give  the 
cable  a  rotary  sweep  corresponding  in  direction 
with  the  diurnal  revolution  of  the  planet,  and  at 
somewhere  near  the  same  speed.  This  was  ac- 
complished by  compelling  work  to  be  done  by  the 
revolution  of  the  planet.  Several  little  circular 
tracks  were  laid  around  the  pole  and  close  to  it 
on  which  were  placed  cars  carrying  heavy  steel 
beams  that  projected  on  either  side  and  dragged 
cutting  and  scraping  tools.  The  cars  being  at- 
tached to  the  cable,  as  the  planet  revolved  they 
were  made  to  pare  down  the  mountain,  and  as  this 
process  continued  long  after  the  successful  at- 
tachment of  the  cable  to  Deimos  the  part  of  the 
mountain  immediately  at  the  pole  became  shaped 
like  an  immense  pin  or  capstan.  The  doing  of  this 
work  by  this  steady  pulling  on  the  cable  gradual- 
ly set  the  cable  to  revolving  around  the  shaft  at 
the  pole,  the  speed  constantly  increasing  until  at 
the  railway  the  cable  had  developed  a  speed  of 
60  miles  an  hour  or  within  12.6  miles  an  hour 
of  the  rate  the  surface  of  the  planet  at  the  rail- 
way was  traveling.  A  locomotive  was  now  attach- 
ed to  the  car  or  truck  that  was  to  carry  the  cable, 
and  by  running  it  from  east  to  west  at  the  rate  of 


264  The  Lunarian  Professor 

12.6  miles  au  hour  it  could  be  kept  directly  un- 
der the  cable.  Before  lowering  it,  however,  it 
was  necessary  to  hump  or  raise  up  that  part  of  it 
extending  from  the  pole  to  the  railwaj^  to  keep 
it  from  dragging  on  the  ground  which  if  straight 
it  would  do  on  account  of  the  rounding  of  the 
globe  of  Mars.  That  was  done  by  turning  on  re- 
pulsion over  that  part  of  it,  and  simultaneously 
putting  on  attraction  in  the  region  of  the  railway. 
This  tended  to  cant  the  loose  end  of  the  cable  to- 
ward the  plane  of  the  planet's  equator  and  brought 
it  very  near  to  the  orbit  of  Deimos.  The  cable 
was  settled  upon  its  truck  without  trouble.  This 
truck  with  the  cable  now  had  an  apparent  motion 
from  east  to  west  of  12.6  miles  an  hour  its  real 
motion  being  from  west  to  east  60  miles  an  hour 
and  that  of  the  railway  track  also  from  west  to 
east  72.6  miles  an  hour.  The  loose  end  of  the  cable 
swept  around  with  a  speed  proportional  with  its 
distance  from  the  pole  of  Mars.  This  speed  was 
3,062J  miles  per  hour  which  is  46  miles  faster  than 
that  of  Deimos  which  is  3,016J  as  I  mentioned  be- 
fore. Of  course  it  was  now  only  necessary  to  tip 
the  cable  over  a  little  more  so  as  to  get  it  into 
the  equatorial  plane  of  Mars  in  order  to  bring  it 
into  contact  with  Deimos.  This  was  done  by  ap- 
plying attraction  to  a  short  section  of  the  cable 
just  outside  of  the  railway  track.  The  cable  slow- 
ly moved  at  the  switch  end  and  came  into  line 
with  Deimos  about  43  days  after  having  passed 
him.  So  as  it  gained  on  him  only  46  miles 
an  hour,  it  took  about  40  days  after  this  to 
catch  up.  This  gave  ample  time  to  get  the 
cable    into    exact    position    so    there    Avould    be 


Deinios  and  the  Great  Cable  2Go 

no  danger  of  missing  him.  This  most  exciting 
race  was  now  closely  watched  by  every  body  on 
Mars  that  could  get  near  a  telescope — and  our 
folks  had  introduced  some  very  excellent  ones.  The 
cable  gradually  crept  up  on  Jack — so  the  specta- 
tors said — like  an  old  woman  with  a  broom.  As 
the  final  moment  approached  the  excitment  be- 
came intense.  The  cable  like  a  vast  arm  termi- 
nated by  an  immense  hand  with  extended  fingers 
came  up  threateningly  behind  and  at  the  fated 
instant  gave  Jack  a  spank  on  the  rear  with  a 
shock  of  46  miles  an  hour  which  sent  all  the 
fingers  flying  around  him  and  clasping  him  with  a 
tremendous   grasp. 

At  that  moment  full  attraction  was  turned  on 
to  these  clasping  strands  of  wire  and  their  hug 
was  made  permanent  by  the  attraction  with  which 
Deimos  held  them  down  to  his  surface.  This 
was  considered  by  the  Lunarians  the  greatest  feat 
in  engineering  that  had  ever  been  accomplished 
up  to  that  time." 

**0r  since  that  time  either  I  should  imagine," 
said  I,  **it  was  wonderful!  What  else  has  ever 
been  achieved  to  compare  with  it?" 

**Well,  the  catching  of  Lucy-Phobos" — 
*0,   I   forgot    about    Lucy-Phobos.     What    did 
they  do  with  her  or  him? — ^Did  they  hitch  Phobos 
to  the  other  pole  of  Mars?" 

*'No,  I'll  tell  you;  but  let  me  finish  with  Dei- 
mos first.  WTien  the  cable  struck  Deimos  of  course 
its  speed  was  at  once  checked.  The  shock  caused 
quite  a  wave  to  pass  down  the  whole  length  of  the 
cable,  but  no  damage  was  done,  and  when  things 


26G  The   Lunarian   Professor 

got  steadied  down  again  it  was  found  the  truck 
that  carried  the  cable  was  making  a  speed  of  13J 
miles  an  hour  from  east  to  west  instead  of  12.6 
Avhich  it  was  doing  before  the  cable  struck  Deimos. 
The  reason  of  this  was  that  Deimos  was  slower 
than  the  cable  and  Mars  dragged  the  track  out 
from  under  the  car  13J  miles  faster  than  Deimos 
dragged  it  forward.  It  was  no  trouble  after  this 
to  go  up  to  Deimos  by  way  of  the  cable.  A  car 
was  built  around  the  cable  consisting  of  four  stor- 
ies, one  above  another.  Friction  rollers  pressed 
the  cable  on  all  sides  to  steady  the  car  and  there 
were  brakes  to  hold  it  when  necessary.  Its  chamb- 
ers w^ere  air  tight  and  it  carried  compressed  air 
for  the  use  of  its  passengers  together  with  all  the 
modern  conveniences.  Of  course  it  ascended  by 
repulsion  and  came  back  by  attraction.  It  en- 
tirely obiviated  the  trouble  they  first  experienced 
in  making  a  landing  on  the  little  moon,  since  the 
cable  traveled  as  fast  as  it  did.  Frequent  trips 
were  made  to  Deimos  and  it  was  always  quite  the 
trip  for  the  strong  nerved  traveler  to  take.  But 
the  main  advantage  of  this  work  of  course  came 
from  the  enormous  power  that  it  afforded  for  in- 
dustrial purposes.  A  long  train  of  trucks  were  at- 
tached to  the  one  carrying  the  cable,  and  these 
contained  dynamos  driven  by  gearing  connections 
with  their  axles.  The  electricity  irenerated  in  this 
way  was  carried  to  wires  running  parallel  with 
the  circular  railroad,  and  from  these,  radiating 
Aviras  running  north,  convey  the  power  to  all  parts 
of  tJie  south  temperate  zone.'* 

They  made  considerable  and  remarkable  chang- 


Deimos  and  ilie  Great  Cable  267 

es  in  Deimos  itself.  One  thing  they  did  was  to 
import  a  large  stock  of  air.  As  I  mentioned  be- 
fore the  air  was  very  light  and  thin,  and  visitors 
at  first  had  to  depend  on  their  flasks  of  com- 
pressed air  to  a  great  extent.  But  after  they  got 
to  making  such  frequent  trips,  it  became  a  rule 
to  always  take  up  large  flasks  of  compresed  oxy- 
gen which  was  prepared  and  kept  on  hand  to  be 
carried  up  whenever  a  trip  should  be  made.  This 
was  set  free  on  the  little  moon.  In  that  way  in 
the  course  of  time  the  air  has  been  made  quite 
passable.  In  order  that  visitors  might  not  con- 
sume it  and  replace  it  with  carbonic  acid  gas,  they 
built  several  lines  of  tiny  railroads  reaching  around 
Deimos  on  w^hich  they  built  movable  gardens. 
These  moved  around  the  whole  circuit  of  the  little 
globe  every  30  hours  and  18  minutes,  that  being 
its  period  of  revolution  around  Mars.  These  little 
gardens  thus  kept  themselves  directly  under  the 
sun  all  the  time,  and  were  thus  always  in  a  tropi- 
cal climate.  Their  growth  consumed  the  carbonic 
gas  that  accumulated  there,  and  so  kept  the  air 
pure.  The  power  that  moved  the  gardens  was 
electricity  generated  by  sun  light.  A  large  num- 
ber of  machines  were  placed  at  intervals  all  around 
the  little  moon  so  that  the  sun  should  always  be 
shining  on  several  of  them. 


268  The  Lunarian  Profcasor 


CHAPTER  XVI. 
Phobos. 

Deimos  is  exceedingly  valuable  also  as  a  sort 
of  stepping  stone  from  which  to  get  onto  Phobos. 
Once  on  Deimos  and  it  is  as  easy  getting  onto 
Phobos  as  to  step  from  one  car  to  another  in  a 
running  train.  Phobos  is  5,807  miles  from  the 
center  of  Mars.  AVhen  the  three  are  in  line  it  is 
8,740  miles  from  Deimos.  Deimos  travels  3,016^ 
miles  an  hour,  Phobos  4,777.  A  body  thrown  off 
from  Deimos  towards  Mars  will  retain  the  velocity 
of  Deimos  and  will  acquire  in  falling  that  8,740 
miles  an  additional  velocity  enough  to  bring  its 
speed  up  to  that  of  Phobos.  So  our  Lunarians  by 
close  calculation  and  timely  departure  from  Dei- 
mos have  had  little  or  no  trouble  in  lighting  on 
Phobos  without  a  perceptible  jar  and  have  con- 
veyed by  that  route  all  the  machinery  and  appa- 
ratus they  needed-  in  making  their  improvements 
there.'' 

*'Was  Phobos   worth   improving   then?" 

*'No,  its  motive  power  was  simply  harnessed 
so  as  to  be  utilized  on  Mars.  They  did  it  in  this 
way. 

A  large  number  of  powerful  steel  magnets  were 
prepared  on  Mars  together  with  the  materials  for 
a  large  basket  or  crate  stout  enough  to  hold  them, 


Pliohos  ^69 

also  four  cables  made  of  wire,  each  two  inches 
in  diameter.  These  materials  done  up  in  proper 
shape  were  taken  up  the  cable  by  repulsion  to 
Deimos  then  again  by  repulsion  cast  off  with  a 
company  of  Lunarians  in  one  of  their  cars  to  sail 
down  to  Phobos." 

*'I  should  think  that  being  encumbered  with 
such  a  lot  of  stuff  would  have  added  greatly  to 
the  risk  of  the  trip,"  said  I. 

''Not  at  all,  the  more  metal  the  better,  since 
it  can  be  made  light  or  heavy  at  will  and  so  kept 
under  control  while  other  materials  could  not  be 
made  light.  It  is  always  desirable  to  have  more  than 
half  the  weight  of  our  outfit  in  iron  or  steel  on 
that  account.  Well,  they  landed  this  material  on 
Phobos  and  there  put  it  together.  The  different 
parts  were  insulated  from  each  other  to  provide 
for  the  use  of  repulsion  or  gravitation  as  the  case 
might   require. 

They  staked  off  an  exact  square  five  and  a 
half  miles  on  each  side,  which  was  about  as  large 
a  one  as  they  could  get  on  Phobos  and  at  each 
corner  they  firmly  anchored  one  end  of  one  of  the 
cables.  At  the  center  of  the  square  Mars  appeared 
directly  overhead.  At  this  point  the  crate  was 
put  together  upside  down  and  its  load  of  magnets 
arranged  inside  of  it  also  upside  down.  The  cables 
3,760  miles  long  were  coiled  in  a  pile  each  to  it- 
self and  the  end  fastened  to  the  corners  of  the 
crate.  On  Mars  this  outfit  weighed  many  tons, 
but  on  Phobos  it  was  so  light  that  one  man  could 
lift  it.  Wires  connected  with  a  battery  passed 
through  the  cables  to  regulate  the  weight  of  the 


270  Tlie   Liuiarian   Professor 

concern.  A  small  amount  of  repulsion  raised  it 
and  carried  it  to  the  limit  of  the  attraction  ox  Pho- 
bos.  The  momentum  taking-  it  a  little  further, 
and  within  the  dominance  of  that  of  Mars  when 
light  attraction  was  turned  on  and  the  crate  rose 
or  rather  fell  slowly  toward  Mars.  AVhen  the  cables 
were  stretched  out  and  the  crate  hung  by  them,  it 
was  within  a  few  feet  of  the  ground  in  some 
places,  at  others  as  much  as  one  or  two  hundred. 
Its  motion  was  from  west  to  east  at  the  incredible 
speed  of  1,160  miles  an  hour.  Its  actual  rate  of 
travel  is  1,681  miles  per  hour,  but  the  revolution 
of  Mars  on  its  axis  is  at  the  rate  521  miles  in  the 
same  direction,  so  the  difference  constitutes  the 
apparent  motion  of  the  crate  of  Magnets.  In  order 
to  get  electric  power  from  these  it  was  only  neces- 
sary to  set  up  insulated  slabs  of  soft  iron  along 
the  route  of  the  magnets  in  such  position  that  they 
would  pass  close  to  them  as  they  swept  by.  This 
w^as  done  at  different  places  along  the  route,  and 
covered  altogether,  distances  aggregating  more 
than  three  thousand  miles.  Of  the  remaining  dist- 
ance around  the  planet  a  part  was  over  the  sea 
and  some  over  low  land,  where  the  scaffolding 
would  be  too  high  to  pay.  The  electricity  generat- 
ed in  these  stationary  armatures  was  run  oft'  to 
storage  batteries  wherever  required  in  the  equat- 
orial regions  of  the  planet.  So,  with  the  cable  to 
Deimos  and  the  big  dynamo  of  Phobos.  Mars  is 
supplied  with  unlimited  power  at  nominal  cost." 

''But  doesn't  the  plant  require  renewal?  I 
should   think   it   would   rust   out   after   awhile." 

"Yes  the  cable  has  been  renewed  twice.     The 


Phoh 


OS 


last  one  put  up  is  12  inches  in  diameter.  It  is 
easy  now  to  put  one  up,  with  the  one  already  up 
to  steady  and  steer  it.  It  only  has  to  fall  up  as 
you  might  say,  under  the  influence  of  repulsion. 
The  occasion  of  putting  up  the  last  cable,  how- 
ever, was  not  rust,  but  a  singular  accident.  Dur- 
ing the  winter  there  are  generally  only  two  or 
three  men  left  at  the  pole  to  keep  the  shaft  oiled 
and  see  that  everything  is  all  right.  One  winter 
the  men  left  in  charge  undertook  to  move  some 
heavy  timbers  and  steel  beams  that  had  been  left 
on  the  top  of  the  mountain,  and  managed  to  get 
them  into  such  a  position  that  they  were  caught 
by  the  cable  which  slowly  carried  them  around 
until  they  partly  fell  into  a  crevice  and  became 
immovable.  The  cable  bent  itself  around  the  ob- 
struction, and  in  doing  so  was  thrown  so  far  down 
over  the  edge  of  the  mountain  which  as  I  told 
you  had  been  turned  off  to  resemble  a  capstan, 
that  it  began  to  be  wound  around  it  as  if  it  were 
a  great  spool.  The  men  telegraphed  to  the  gen- 
eral manager  who  came  up  with  a  crowd  of  en- 
gineers and  workmen,  but  they  could  not  do  a 
thing  except  to  keep  the  cable  raised  by  repulsion 
as  much  as  possible  to  keep  it  from  catching  some 
obstruction  on  the  ground.  The  cable  made  the 
complete  circuit  of  the  railway  track  in  a  trifle 
over  5J  days.  The  mountain  stem  had  been  whit- 
tled down  to  about  a  mile  in  diameter  so  that  each 
revolution  wound  up  a  little  over  three  miles  of 
cable,  which  was  at  the  rate  of  a  little  over  half 
a  mile  a  day. 

The   cable   was   so    injured   where   it   had   been 


373  Tlic  Lunarian  Professor 

wound  up  that  they  were  afraid  it  would  break 
if  they  loosened  it,  and  so  they  concluded  to  make 
a  new  one.  There  did  not  seem  to  be  any  great 
hurry  about  it,  and  so  it  dragged  along  for  four 
years  without  much  being  done.  By  that  time 
almost  700  miles  of  cable  had  been  wound  up  and 
Deimos  had  been  drawn  up  that  much  nearer  to 
Mars.  Some  thought  this  a  good  thing  and  pro- 
posed to  let  him  wind  himself  down  wuthin  a 
hundred  miles  or  so  of  Mars,  so  that  he  would 
be  of  some  account  as  a  moon,  for  he  gave  very 
little  light  where  he  was.  Others  wanted  him 
pulled  down  to  the  ground  so  they  could  cut  him 
up  and  get  'the  gold,  silver,  iron  and  other  valua- 
bles he  might  contain;  enough  they  said  to  m.ake 
all  the  Martians  rich.  But  the  more  prudent 
pointed  out  that  if  he  was  pulled  down  too  far 
he  would  interfere  with  Lucy  Phobos  and  spoil  her 
work.  It  had  been  observed  that  the  cable  had 
been  getting  slower  and  slower  and  was  now 
moving  only  a  little  more  than  half  as  fast  as  it 
did  at  first,  and  the  industries  depending  on  it 
were  getting  short  of  power.  The  mathematicians 
figured  that  Deimos  would  never  wind  himself  up 
any  closer  than  12,700  miles  or  1,847  miles  from 
where  he  was  in  the  first  place,  for  the  reason  that 
drawing  him  in  towards  Mars  increased  his  speed 
so  that  when  he  was  wound  up  to  12,700  miles  he 
would  revolve  around  the  planet  in  24  hours  and 
40  minutes,  the  same  time  it  takes  Mars  to  roll 
over.  Consequently  Deimos  would  appear  to  stand 
over  the  same  spot  all  the  time,  the  cable  would 
cease  to  move  and  the  winding  up  process  would 


The   Neiv   Cahfe  273 

stop,  and  of  course  all  the  machinery  connected 
with  it  would  stop  too.  After  a  full  discussion  of 
the  matter,  it  was  concluded  to  let  Deimos  get 
back  to  his  original  orbit,  so  that  the  manufactur- 
ing that  had  been  started  and  was  operated  by  the 
power  furnished  by  the  cable  might  not  suffer  any 
further  loss. 

The  New  Cable. 

The  new  cable  was  run  up  alongside  of  the 
old  and  the  upper  end  fastened  to  Deimos  while 
the  eye  in  the  lower  end  was  placed  over  the  shaft. 
The  cable  was  then  deprived  of  weight  and  the 
700  miles  of  slack  floated  about  in  space  like  a  big 
cobweb.  It  was  now  supposed  that  if  the  old 
cable  was  cut  Deimos  would  rapidly  move  out  to 
his  old  position.  But  he  did  nothing  of  the  kind. 
He  seemed  to  be  satisfied  with  his  new  route,  and 
for  several  months  he  persistently  kept  on  without 
getting  any  further  away,  his  slack  cable  sagging 
out  behind.  They  now  undertook  to  compel  him, 
and  they  succeeded  in  this  way.  They  gave  the 
cable  full  weight  repulsion.  This  caused  it  to 
straighten  out  upward,  and  the  slack  went  on  up 
350  miles  above  Deimos  curving  back  to  him.  The 
whole  thing  looked  like  a  fish  pole  and  line  with 
Deimos  dangling  at  the  end  of  it.  It  had  the 
desired  effect,  however,  for  its  strain  upward  ex- 
erted considerable  power  on  Deimos  disturbing 
the  equilibrium  that  had  been  established  between 
the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  that  con- 
trolled his  motion.  It  took  about  two  years,  how- 
ever, to  get  him  back  to  his  old  route.     Pie  was 


5'^l  The  Lunarian  Professor 

tipped  over  twice  in  the  process,  on  account  of  the 
cable  having  been  fastened  on  the  underside;  first 
while  the  loop  of  the  cable  was  above  it,  and 
second  when  it  got  out  to  the  end  of  the  cable  it 
w^as  canted  back  again." 

"It  was  a  funny  experience,  the  little  moon 
had,"  I  observed.  '*I  suppose  it  got  down  to  its 
former  gait  so  as  to  allow  of  the  old  retrograde 
speed  of  cable  at  the  Mars  end?" 

''Yes  of  course,  the  speed  of  Deimos  decreased 
with  its  distance  from  Mars.  It  has  occurred  to 
them  since,  that  they  ought  to  have  had  a  still 
longer  cable,  so  as  to  have  got  him  still  further 
off  with  a  still  slower  movement.  They  would 
have  got  more  power  by  it. 

The  last  time  I  was  on  Mars  a  remarkable  cir- 
cumstance took  place  that  I  shall  never  forget.  I 
was  one  of  a  party  that  accompanied  the  King  on 
a  visit  to  the  pole  to  inspect  the  plant  and  view 
the  landscape.  From  this  lofty  elevation  the  view 
is  charming,  and  there  is  also  a  strange  fascination 
in  watching  the  solemn  revolution  of  the  great 
cable  moving  with  the  deliberation  and  precise 
regularity''  of  the  hour  hand  of  some  enormous  time 
piece.  There  is  a  little  cabin  built  over  the  shaft 
at  the  pole  which  revolves  with  the  cable.  The 
man  whose  business  it  is  to  oil  the  shaft  constant- 
ly stays  in  that  cabin,  and  even  sleeps  there.  While 
we  were  admiring  the  view  we  suddenly  heard  a 
scream  from  the  man  in  the  cabin.  The  eye  of 
the  cable  is  oval  and  is  not  filled  by  the  shaft  at 
its  inside  end.  Upon  rushing  into  the  cabin  we 
found    the    unfortunate  man  had  been  asleep  and 


The   new   Cable  2'}'5 

allowed  one  of  his  feet  to  drop  into  this  space 
and  it  had  been  slowly  drawn  in  between  the  cable 
and  the  shaft  until  it  was  so  fastened  that  he 
could  not  pull  it  out  with  the  most  frantic  exer- 
tions, and  every  minute  took  it  further  crushing 
as  it  went.  At  last  the  man  called  for  an  ax,  and 
it  was  handed  to  him,  when  without  a  moment's 
hesitation,  with  two  or  three  strokes  he  severed  his 
leg  just  above  the  knee.  I  was  terribly  shocked, 
but  the  poor  man  made  light  of  it,  and  declared 
he  would  have  another  leg  in  its  place  as  good  as 
that  one  in  five  months.  Less  than  two  weeks  af- 
terwards I  saw  him  and  his  leg  had  already  start- 
ed to  grow  out  and  in  five  months  he  was  walking 
on  it  the  same  as  the  others." 

"That  was  remarkable,"  said  I,  **but  it  is 
said  the  star  fishes  on  earth — what!  are  you  go- 
ing?" 

The  professor  during  his  talk  had  been  arrang- 
ing his  car,  a  process  I  had  been  endeavoring  to 
keep  the  run  of  without  losing  his  conversation. 
He  had  erected  a  cab  or  house  over  the  lower  part 
or  body  of  it,  had  fastened  it  down  with  a  sort  of 
clamps,  that  appeared  to  make  the  joints  air  tight, 
leaving  open  a  small  door  on  one  side.  The  ma- 
terial of  this  cab  was  a  thick  leathery  substance, 
evidently  very  tough  and  stiff  and  very  transpar- 
ent. He  had  also  an  instrument  that  I  directly 
perceived  was  an  air  pump,  for  he  used  it  in  pump- 
ing air  into  a  number  of  flasks — those  that  he  had 
emptied,  I  suppose,  on  his  trip  down  from  the 
moon.  As  he  filled  them  hje  placed  them  inside  of 
the  cab  and  having  walked  around  and  carefully 


2^(j  The  Lunarian  Professor 

inspected  everything  to  his  satisfaction,  he  paused 
and  turned  his  great  benignant  eyes  upon  nie  in 
a  hesitating  manner  that  seemed  to  say  that  he 
had  something  more  to  tell  me  which  nevertheless 
he  hesitated  to  communicate.  After  a  few  mo- 
ments he  overcame  his  scruples  if  he  had  an}^  and 
reaching  into  one  of  his  middle  pockets  he  brought 
forth  a  thin  piece  of  stuff  resembling  parchment 
covered  on  both  sides  by  an  adhesive  substance 
like  that  used  on  postage  stamps.  In  shape  it 
was  like  the  moon  at  its  first  quarter.  He  pressed 
this  piece  against  his  forehead  and  left  it  sticking 
there  for  only  a  moment  then  handed  it  to  me 
with  a  gesture  that  appeared  to  indicate  that  I 
should  press  it  against  mine.  I  did  this,  but  it 
did  not  stick  and  there  came  into  my  head  a  very 
strange  and  muddled  sensation  not  unlike  a  head- 
ache. I  pulled  it  off.  The  Professor  v\^as  looking 
at  me  and  evidently  perceived  my  trouble,  for  he 
directed  me  by  a  gesture  to  turn  it  over.  The  ef- 
fect of  this  was  as  wonderful  as  it  was  agreeable. 
The  Professor  seemed  to  me  to  be  talking  through 
a  telephone  and  while  I  could  not  say  that  I  un- 
derstood him  any  better  than  by  his  usual  method, 
it  was,  to  me,  a  new  method,  and  disclosed  new 
faculties  and  possibilities  showing  in  a  new  light 
the  genius  and  versatility  of  this  wonderful  race. 
The  information  that  he  chose  this  novel  way  of 
communicating  to  me,  related  to  the  rumor  in  cir- 
culation in  Mars  as  stated  sometime  back,  that  a 
company  of  speculators  made  up  of  Lunarians  and 
extensive  promotors  living  on  the  Earth  were  act- 
ually planning  to  impose  a  new  orbit  on  ]\Iars  and 


The  Great  Scheme  277 

had  so  far  progressed  with  the  scheme,  that  th. 
stock  was  all  subscribed.     It  was  understood  the 
Lunarians  were  to  do  the  actual  work;  m  fact  u 
was  conceded  that  they  were  the  only  people  an 
the  solar  system  that  possessed  a  plant  at  al    com- 
Lnsurote  with  the  magnitude  of  the  undertaking 
or  were  sufficiently  skilled  or  experienced  to  han- 
dle it    The  Lunarians  were  too  shrewd  or  wary  to 
undertake  such  a  contract  without  assuring  them- 
selves  of  their  ability  to  perform  it.    It  was  to  in- 
orm  themselves  on  this  point,  that  the  Professor  had 
agreed  to  make  the  long  trip  to  Mars  d^-^^J  -^: 
ter  his  return   to  the  Moon.     This  was   a  larger 
undertaking  than  they  had  yet  attempted.     They 
understood  perfectly   the  -ath-atica^^  pnnci^^^^^^^^^ 
involved   '^"t  til.  jy  ™  f^  o^^the  appara^^^_ 
[rta^rrnan-rttrdeclareaiftheyco^^^^^^ 
Pt  all    they  could  do  it  easily.      They    reiiea    o 
bourse  on  their  great  secret-the  repulsion  of  grav- 

"^'¥1"   great  scheme  was  therefore  not  the  hoax 
they  we^e  willing  to  have  the  general  publi     be- 

ieve  it  to  be,  but  a  well  --id^-'^  f  Xdciste 
some  of  the  most  astute  financiers  and  physicists 
Tthe  solar  system.     The  following  are  some  of 
the   principal  names  and  firms  enlisted  in  th^  en- 
terprise.   U.  L.  &  V;  J.  Y.  &  Co.,    K.  G.  Q.,  A  W. 
Z.  &  Sons;  H.  0.  &  Co.;  B.  H.  R.  Sons  and  Co     M. 
I>.C.C.C.;J.X.&J.;I.&P.;I>-J-&N^'^^H^ 
I    &  F  ;  N.  B.;  S.  I.  &  Co.;  C.  M.  &  Co.;  R.  T.  &- 
X  ■   C    E      The   timidity   of   capital  is  notorious; 
likewise   its   gullibility   and   therefore   its  instinct 


278  TIlc   Lunarian   Professor 

for  secrecy  and  slyness.  But  the  above  array  of 
names  is  an  ample  guaranty  against  trifling. 

There  had  occurred  to  me  from  the  first,  the 
interesting  question,  what  the  business  could  be 
that  would  imiDose  such  a  long  and  fatiguing  jour- 
ney on  the  Professor  as  a  visit  to  Mars.  I  remem- 
bered the  evasive  reply  he  gave  me  when  asked 
in  regard  to  the  great  scheme  for  the  abduction 
of  that  planet.  I  presume  it  was  the  tension  on 
my  mind,  relating  to  this  subject,  that  gave  him 
an  inkling  telepathically  of  my  wish  to  learn  more 
of  this  great  scheme  and  led  him  to  pause  and 
comply  as  related  above.  As  to  their  ability  to 
work  out  so  vast  an  enterprise;  it  may  be  doubted. 
AVhen  ]\Iars  is  in  a  direct  line  between  Jupiter  and 
the  Sun,  if  they  could  give  it  a  vigorous  repulsory 
push  from  Jupitor  while  the  sun's  attraction  re- 
mains in  activity,  both  his  orbit  and  time  would 
approximate  those  of  the  Earth.  It  might  take 
several  such  repulsory  pushes  to  secure  the  degree 
of  conformity  required  for  the  adjustment  of  the 
three  orbits — Moon,  Mars  and  Earth.  There  is 
no  denying  the  imminent  risk  to  be  incurred  even 
by  such  experts  as  our  Lunarians,  in  handling 
three  bulky  globes  in  such  close  proximity,  for  it 
is  not  Mars  alone  that  will  be  involved  in  any 
change  that  may  be  brought  about;  but  all  three. 
It  will  prove  a  much  greater  contract  than  hand- 
ling Deimos  and  Phobos. 

These  thoughts  passed  rapidly  through  my 
brain,  while  the  Professor  after  another  hasty  in- 
spection of  his  car,  suddenly  stepped  inside  and 
closed  the  door,  fastening  it  with  clamps  like  the 


The  Great  Scheme  279 

rest.  While  he  was  doing  this  I  eagerly  inquired 
if  he  would  uot  meet  me  again  sometime  and  re- 
sume the  story  of  my  race  in  the  far  future  be- 
yond the  one  hundreth  millenium. 

He  nodded  his  head  affirmatively  with  a  most 
benignant  smile, of  his  great  kindly  eyes,  and  said 
something  I  could  only  partially  understand — "I 
will  meet  you  here  August  —  9 ,"  some- 
thing preceded  and  something  followed  the  nine, 
but  I  cannot  tell  what.  The  nine  probably  refers 
to  the  year— but  nine  occurs  in  every  remaining 
year  of  this  century,  and  in  every  one  of  the  next. 
He  waved  his  hand  to  me,  then  reached  forward 
from  his  seat  in  the  back  of  the  car  touched  a 
button — or  something — and  began  at  once  to  rise, 
rather  rapidly  from  the  first,  and  increasing  in 
speed  so  fast  that  the  car  as  I  gazed  after  it, 
dwindled  with  wonderful  rapidity  and  soon  went 
out.  Before  he  shut  himself  in  his  car  I  had  in- 
stinctively taken  off  my  hat,  and  I  stood  there 
holding  it  in  my  hand,  but  without  sufficient  pres- 
ence of  mind  to  frame  an  appropriate  farewell. 
The  fact  is,  his  personality  was  overpowering  and 
in  his  presence — I  speak  only  for  myself — one  felt 
small  and  insignificant. 

''Well!  can  you  make  it  out?"  The  words 
t-tartled  me  and  looking  up  I  saw  Allan  Ocheltree 
standing  before  me  with  a  bucket  of  water  in  his 
hand.  I  could  not  realize  for  a  few  moments  where 
I  was.  Looking  down  I  saw  in  my  hands  the  stake 
with  the  red  blotches  on  that  I  had  tried  to  read 
before  I  met  the  Professor.  But  that  was  long 
ago.     I  had  but  little  idea  how  long,  but  it  must 


280  The  Lunarian  Professor 

have  been  tedious  for  Allan  during  the  long  period 
I  was  interviewing  the  Professor.  I  wondered  how 
he  had  occupied  himself,  and  why  he  had  not  dis- 
turbed the  interview — though  I  was  exceedingly 
grateful  that  he  had  not.  Perhaps  he  had  seen 
the  Professor  himself.     I  asked  him. 

''"What  are  you  giving  me?"  said  he,  "I  have 
seen  no  professor." 

''But  he  has  only  this  moment  left  me,  perhaps 
he  is  still  in  sight,"  said  I,  "and  I  at  once  turned 
an  eager  gaze  toward  the  sky  overhead  and  direct- 
ly descried  a  small  black  speck.  "There!  what's 
that — I  believe  that's  the  Professor." 

"That,"  said  Allan  cooly,  "is  a  crane,  j'ou  can 
see  it  moving  toward  the  east.  It  is  going  home 
to  Crane  Island.  "What's  the  matter,  are  you  dream- 
ing?" 

I  briefly  explained. 

"Well,"  said  Allan,  "you  must  have  fallen  in- 
to a  doze  and  got  to  dreaming.  Don't  give  your- 
self any  worry  about  the  way  I  have  put  in  the 
time,  I  have  been  very  agreeably  occupied!  getting 
this  bucket  of  water." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  said  I,  "that  all  this  in- 
terview has  taken  only" — 

"I  mean  to  say  that  you  have  been  sitting  down 
there  on  that  bank  holding  that  piece  of  stick  with 
the  blurred  keel  marks  on  it,  just  long  enough  for 
me  to  walk  to  that  rock  yonder  dip  up  a  bucket 
of  water  and  walk  back.  Here,  time  me  with  j^our 
watch  and  I  will  show  you  how  long  it  took." 

W^hereupon  he  threw  away  the  water  in  his 
bucket,  walked  to  the  rock,  refilled  it  and  walked 


The  Return  Voyage  281 

back — in  one  minute  and  forty  seconds !  Thus  may 
one  get  an  idea  of  the  quickness  of  thought.  I 
had  heard  of  it  before,  but  never  realized  it  so 
completely. 

As  we  went  on  with  our  preparations  for  our 
dinner  I  gave  Allan  some  further  accout  of  what 
I  seemed  to  have  heard  and  seen,  and  he  became 
quite  interested  in  it. 

''I  think,"  said  he,  ''you  ought  to  write  it  down, 
and  do  it  at  once  before  you  forget  it.  You  had 
better  go  right  back  to  your  cottage  at  the  other 
end  of  the  lake.  I'll  go  with  you,  perhaps  I  can 
help  you.     I  can  write  while  you  dictate." 

I  thought  myself,  I  ought  to  write  it  down, 
and  was  pleased  that  he  made  the  suggestion.  It 
was  soon  arranged.  After  dinner  we  piled  our 
things  in  the  Sally  Ann  and  were  soon  under  way. 
Instead  of  rowing  back  to  the  outlet  of  Halstead's 
Bay,  we  steered  for  a  narrow  depression  in  the 
long  point  of  land  that  separates  the  Bay  from 
the  upper  lake.  At  this  place  which  is  only  a  few 
yards  wide,  we  made  a  portage  by  dragging  the 
boat  over  by  main  strength,  and  in  a  minute  were 
in  the  lake,  and  just  in  time  to  hail  a  little  steamer 
on  its  way  down.  They  threw  us  a  line  which  we 
made  fast  to  the  Sally  Ann,  and  were  thus  towed 
back  to  Excelsior.  Here  Allan  left  me  to  go  and 
settle  his  board  bill  and  get  his  things,  with  the 
understanding  that  he  would  come  over  to  my 
cottage  next  morning,  while  the  steamer  pursued 
her  way  toward  the  St.  Louis  hotel.  Opposite 
Cottagewood  I  threw  off  the  line  and  in  a  few 


282  The  Lunarian  Professor 

minutes  was  back  in  my  cottage.  This  terminated 
the  cruise  of  the  Sally  Ann. 

That  night  I  dreamed  over  the  entire  interview 
with  the  Professor,  I  believe  verbatim. 

Next  morning  a  messenger  came  with  a  note 
from  Allan  saying  that  he  had  found  awaiting  him 
a  telegram  from  a  favorite  niece  demanding  his 
presence  at  her  wedding  due  to  come  off  at  S't. 
Louis  at  a  time  that  required  his  immediate  de- 
parture. This  he  considered  imperative  and  he 
had  accordingly  started  the  night  before.  He 
would  try  and  come  back  after  the  wedding  was 
over,  he  said. 

I  began  to  write  up  the  ''interview"  that  day, 
and  that  night  I  dreamed  it  all  over  again.  It 
seemed  to  be  now  well  fixed  in  my  mind  and  I 
wrote  rapidly.  A  week  later  I  got  another  note 
from  Allan.  Business  had  claimed  him  again  and 
he  regretted  that  he  would  have  to  forego  any 
further  outing  till  next  season.  I  have  never 
heard  from  him  since. 

I  wrote  vigorously  on  the  interview,  and  finish- 
ed it  in  two  weeks.  I  was  very  tired  and  glad  to 
get  back  to  the  city  and  to  work  so  as  to  rest  up 
from  the  fatigues  of  my  outing, 


Appendix  283 


APPENDIX. 

See  page  17,  Mitchel  Discovery. 

The  Reader  will  remember  that  the  Professor 
stated  that  the  alternating  gravity  currents— the 
secret  of  which  the  Lunarians  so  tightly  gripped— 
could  be  applied  only  to  metals  and  has  no  effect 
on  organic  substances.  In  order  to  get  the  use  of 
these  currents  for  moving  or  controlling  such 
bodies,  it  must  be  acquired  through  the  manipula- 
tion of  the  metals.  Thus  if  a  piece  of  metal  be 
attached  to  a  block  of  wood,  according  to  the  Pro- 
fessor, the  greater  quantity  of  the  metal  will  con- 
trol the  movement.  If  a  box  be  constructed  of 
metal  so  as  to  hold  non  reversible  materials  of 
course  they  will  share  the  movement  of  the  metal. 

The  following  account  of  the  discovery  by  Pro- 
fessor Mitchell,  taken  from  a  paper  of  the  period, 
is  suggestive  of  a  connection  between  that  and  the 
discovery  by  the  Lunarians. 

Sometime  in  the  sixth  decade  of  this  century 
(19th)  a  very  remarkable  discovery  was  said  to 
have  been  made  by  the  celebrated  astronomer.  Prof. 
0.  M.  Mitchel,  then  of  Cincinnati,  and  director  of 
Dudley  and  Cincinnati  Observatories.  He  discov- 
ered either  a  new  metal  or  an  amalgam,  alloy  or 
compound,  which  when  formed  into  plates  posses- 
ed  the  property  of  preventing  the  passage  through 
it    of   the    influence    of    gravitation.      In    short    it 


284:  The   Lunarian   Professor 

effectually  stopped  the  passage  of  the  lines  of 
force  that  constitute  gravitation,  so  that  if  a  cage 
or  box  were  made  of  such  material  any  solid  body 
placed  inside  of  it  would  lose  its  weight  and  not 
tend  to  fall.  If  a  man  were  to  get  inside  of  such 
a  box,  he  would  find  himself  destitute  of  weight 
toward  the  ground.  But  if  he  should  open  the 
top  of  the  box  he  would  admit  the  influence  of 
gravity  from  that  direction,  coming  from  the 
moon,  planets  or  stars  that  might  happen  to  be  in 
that  direction  at  the  moment  and  it  would  at 
once  commence  to  rise.  Acting  upon  the  obvious 
suggestions  enforced  by  such  experiments  the  Pro- 
fessor caused  a  cage  to  be  built  large  enough  to  con- 
tain 4  or  5  persons,  and  in  order  to  secure  secrecy 
had  it  conveyed  in  pieces,  together  with  all  need- 
ed apparatus  and  stores,  to  a  solitary  and  obscure 
circular  hollow  or  depression  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mississippi  not  far  from  Natchez,  and  called  the 
Devil's  Punch-bowl.  Here  the  cage  was  put  to- 
gether and  the  numerous  openings  in  the  plates  on 
all  sides  covered  by  movable  slilding  lids  of  the 
same  material,  were  carefully  closed  and  secured, 
all  the  scientific  apparatus,  the  provisions'  flasks 
of  compressed  air  etc.,  were  conveyed  within,  and 
lastly  the  voyagers  themselves.  By  opening  the 
ports  in  the  direction  of  the  moon  they  soon  be- 
gan to  fall  toward  her.  As  they  approached  her, 
by  a  judicious  manipulation  of  the  sliding  doors 
they  were  enabled  to  make  a  complete  revolution 
around  her.  They  did  not  land,  reserving  that  ad- 
venture for  another  trip.  On  their  return  to  earth 
they  steadied  themselves  in  a  position  some  miles 


Appendix  285 

up,  and  allowed  the  earth  to  revolve  under  them 
until  the  Devils  punch-bowl  came  directly  beneath 
them,  when  they  dropped  into  it.  They  disman- 
tled and  secreted  their  machine  intending  to  re- 
turn. Shortly  after  this  the  Civil  war  came  on, 
during  which  Prof.  Mitchel  became  a  general  in 
the  service  and  died  at  Beaufort,  South  Carolina, 
October  30,  1862,  and  the  secret  of  his  discovery 
as  I  suppose  died  with  him. 

p.  s. : — Notice!  If  any  of  the  companions  of 
Professor  Mitchell  on  the  above  trip  to  the  moon 
are  still  living  they  would  greatly  oblige  the 
author  by  sending  him  their  address. 

Over  Population. 

See  page  155. 

Taking  our  stand  in  the  future  alongside  of 
the  men  and  women  that  will  then  be  pressing 
their  brains  against  the  apparently  insoluble  prob- 
lem of  over-population,  we  will  share  their  amaze- 
ment at  the  insane  panic  that  penetrated  the 
American  people  of  the  19th  century  to  give  away 
and  on  any  terms  to  get  rid  of  their  magnificent 
domain  and  have  it  pass  into  the  control  and  own- 
ership of  any  undesirable  bipeds  that  would  take 
it  as  a  gift.  They  acted  as  if  they  thought  land 
was  an  encumbrance  and  something  that  was  im- 
poverishing and  ruining  the  nation.  If  they  had 
held  out  an  exclusive  welcome  to  the  hardy  and 
liberty  loving  people  of  the  north  of  Europe,  the 
stock  that  fought  for  liberty  and  independence  in 
the  first  place,  it  would  have  been  at  least  more 
rational.  But  under  any  conditions,  why  such  a 
panic  to  fill  up  the  country  with  people?     Carlyle 


286  The   Lunarian   Professor 

speaking  of  the  prosperity  of  America  50  or  60 
years  ago  said:  "You  may  boast  of  your  free  in- 
stitutions and  your  dimmoeracy  and  all  that,  but 
America  is  prosperous,  because  you  have  a  great 
deal  of  land  for  a  very  few  people," 

Hei  was  right. 

As  long  as  land  was  abundant  or  rather  as  long 
as  people  were  scarce,  there  was  enough  of  the 
necessaries  of  life  to  give  a  competence  and  '^cm- 
fort  to  all.  When  the  country  is  filled  up  there  is 
no  longer  the  profusion  that  nature  set  out  for  us 
at  first.  The  land  that  we  ought  to  have  reserv- 
ed for  our  children,  educated  in  our  ways  and  in- 
heriting our  ideas  is  given  to  foreigners,  and  our 
own  are  disinherited.  The  miraculous  insanity  of 
this,  is  that  we  view  this  prospect  with  more  than 
complacency  and  are  anxious  to  help  it  along.  We 
not  only  crowd  the  country  with  immigrants,  many 
of  whom  we  are  obliged  to  class  as  objectionable, 
but  we  encourage  a  double  rate  of  increase  by  the 
Apotheosis  of  the  parents  of  large  families,  as  if 
fecundity  were  a  merit  or  there  were  any  danger 
of  **race  suicide".  The  danger  is  greater  that 
nature  out  of  patience  with  our  colossal  stupidity 
will  visit  homicide  on  the  whole  race,  just  as  she 
has  so  often  done  on  parts  of  it. 

The  danger  the  Professor  sees  ahead  is  no 
dream.  Neither  is  the  final  remedy  he  so  con- 
fidently proposes.  Even  now,  are  some  of  these 
vital  questions  being  solved,  and  along  the  Pro- 
fessor's lines.  We  shall  learn  to  begin  our  study  of 
sociology  with  the  Bees  and  the  Ants;  older  races 
than  we  are,  and  in  practical  hard  sense  far  ahead. 


Appendix  SSI' 

Many  people  do  not  know  that  we  have  gone 
to  sleep  directly  over  a  weak  spot  in  the  Earth's 
crust,  that  although  it  gives  many  warnings  by 
growlings  and  grumblings,  it  fails  to  wake  us  up. 
AVe  turn  over  and  half  awake,  we  mutter — it  isn't 
going  to  be  much  of  a  quake  I  guess.  If  some 
crank  does  not  succeed  in  sounding  the  alarm  loud 
enough  and  none  but  a  crank  will  be  likely  to 
sound  it  at  all,  the  citizen  peers  out — "tis  noth- 
ing but  that  crank,'*  he  says,  and  he  rolls  over 
as  if  he  thought  it  better  to  be  overwhelmed  by 
a  quake  than  saved  by  a  crank.  So  much  the 
worse  if  even  the  crank  cannot  save  us. 

The  questions  that  we  seem  desirous  to  push 
aside  are  the  most  persistent  in  pressing  for  solu- 
tion. What  is  the  aim  of  the  aimless  multitudes 
that  swarm  to  our  shores?  What  do  any  of  us 
live  for?  To  live?  Is  living  worth  it,  if  it  can- 
not be  done  in  comfort?  The  old  theological  query 
shows  up — ''What  is  the  chief  end  of  man"?  As 
they  answered;  it  was  nothing  at  all  to  man  and 
of  paltry  insignificance  to  anybody  else. 

Worker  Sex. 

See  page  182. 

I  inferred  from  a  remark  the  Professor  drop- 
ped that  he  regarded  the  present  human  race  as 
gradually  developing  a  third  or  worker  sex  from 
those  present,  especially  the  female;  and  this  with- 
out any  artificial  effort.  It  is  evident  to  the  most 
superficial  observation  that  the  women  are  push- 
ing ahead  into  occupations  that  a  few  years  ago 
were    monopolized    by    the    men.      The    men,    are 


288  The  Lunarian  Professor 

being  dispossessed  of  their  employments,  and  the 
"women  usurp  their  places.  Women  thus  employed 
and  self  supporting,  cannot  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  see  anything  very  alluring  in  a  mar- 
riage that  presents  a  prospect  to  the  woman  of 
being  obliged  to  support  a  husband  and  children 
as  well  as  herself.  This  condition  of  things  will 
certainly  cause  a  decline  in  matrimony,  has  al- 
ready done  it  in  fact;  amongst  the  women  of  the 
greatest  enterprise. 

See  page  199,  Abolition  of  the  Stomach. 

The  Professor's  plan  of  the  abortion  or  extinc- 
tion of  the  digestive  apparatus  is  in  direct  contin- 
uance of  evolution.  There  are  many  cases  in  nature 
in  w^hich  a  process  or  system  is  abandoned  or 
superseded  by  a  different  one,  and  new  organs  and 
new  functions  may  totally  displace  others.  For 
example  the  Amphibians  are  supplied  with  gills, 
and  are  able  to  live  continuously  under  water,  but 
they  begin  to  live  part  of  the  time  in  the  air,  and 
lungs  are  developed  which  at  first  begin  to  do  part 
of  the  office  of  aerating  the  blood  of  the  animal, 
and  gradually  assume  the  whole  of  the  function, 
the  gills  becoming  atrophied  and  abolished. 

The  prognostication  of  the  Professor  in  regard 
to  the  metamorphosis  of  the  digestive  apparatus 
is  neither  wild  nor  extravagant.  The  unborn  in- 
fant lives  on  food  digested  by  its  mother  and  in- 
troduced into  its  system.  After  its  birth  the  food 
is  digested  and  supplied  by  its  own  internal  labor- 
atory, instead  of  that  of  the  mother.  It  might 
just  as  well  be  supplied  by  a  chemical  laboratory. 


Appendix  289 

The  only  essential  condition  is  that  the  food  be 
perfectly  assimilable  by  the  tissues  and  without 
any  surplus  of  substances  not  required.  The 
transfer  of  the  food  supply  from  the  circulation 
of  the  mother  to  its  production  by  the  chemist  is 
reached  by  several  stages  or  changes.  First  it  is 
from  the  mothers  circulation  supported  by  ex- 
terior supplies  of  food.  Next  it  is  furnished  by 
the  circulation  of  the  infant  supported  by  exterior 
supplies;  commonly  beginning  with  the  natural 
lacteal  secretion,  then  after  a  time  the  demand 
changes  from  this  to  stronger  food;  also  to  ac- 
quired habits  in  taste  the  use  of  stimulants,  narco- 
tics etc.  Thus  nature  changes  the  organism  in 
the  most  radical  way  to  keep  it  in  conformity  with 
conditions  that  are  necessary  for  its  support,  and 
likewise  changes  its  environment  to  furnish  the 
conditions  with  which  conformity  is  essential.  If 
we  consider  how  great  the  changes  are,  in  the 
structure  and  functions  of  one  body  during  the 
living  of  one  life;  we  cannot  feel  surprised  at  the 
changes  in  human  anatomy  that  we  know  to  have 
occurred  in  the  long  ages  up  which  we  have  so 
laboriously  toiled,  nor  at  the  further  changes 
which  the  foresight  of  the  Professor  points  out 
to  us,  and  for  which  he  helps  himself  to  such  a 
prodigal  allowance  of  time.  The  changes  we  have 
met  and  passed  are  far  greater  than  those  assum- 
ed for  the  future.  As  to  our  evolution  we  are 
certainly  not  yet  half  through. 

See  page  225,  Notes  on  Mars. 

The  following  notes  of  the  conditions  of  Mars 
and  its  tiny  satellites  are  furnished  by  our  mun- 


390  The  Lunlavian  Professor 

dane  astronomers,  and  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
problems  that  demanded  solution  by  the  Lunarians 
in  their  famous  contract.  Gravity  on  Mars  is 
four-tenths  as  much  as  on  the  Earth.  The  atmo- 
spheric pressure  is  two  and  a  quarter  pounds  per 
square  inch  against  15  pounds  on  the  Earth.  The 
climate  of  the  poles  is  much  milder  than  the  same 
regions  of  Earth,  although  there  are  heavy  falls 
of  snow.  In  June  and  July  1892,  1,600,000  square 
miles  of  snow  melted  oif  in  the  southern  zone  of 
Mars.  April  9,  1890,  3,000,000  square  miles  of 
snow  fell.  Ice  is  not  formed  anywhere  except 
close  to  the  poles  in  winter  time.  The  channels 
are  connected  from  sea  to  sea.  They  are  60  miles 
wide  and  from  3,000  to  4,000  miles  long  in  a 
straight  line.  There  are  many  of  the  channels  that 
are  duplicates,  the  duplicate  being  parallel  with 
and  200  to  400  miles  from  the  main  channel.  There 
are  from  7  to  20  of  these  duplicate  channels.  Most 
of  the  surface  of  Mars  is  boggy  syrtis,  neither  sea 
nor  good  dry  land.  Clouds  float  20  miles  high — 
4  times  as  high  as  on  Earth. 

The  year  of  Mars  is  equal  to  687  of  our  days. 
His  day  is  24  hours  and  37  minutes.  His  diame- 
ter is  about  4,500  miles;  his  distance  from  the 
sun  145.000.000  of  miles;  his  nearest  position  to 
the  Earth  35,000,000  miles. 

The  moon  Phobos  is  8  to  9  miles  in  diameter. 
It  is  3,760  miles  from  the  surface  of  INIars,  and  re- 
volves around  him  in  7  hours  and  39  minutes,  at 
a  rate  of  79.6  per  minute.  It  rises  in  the  west 
and  sets  in  the  east.     Its  orbit  is  .S6.486  miles.  Dei- 


Appendix  291 

mos  rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the  west,  so  to 
Mars,  does  the  Earth,  Sun  and  Moon.  The  diame- 
ter of  Deimos  6  to  7  miles,  distance  from  the  sur- 
face of  Mars  12,500  miles  and  his  revolution  is 
performed  in  30  hours  and  18  minutes,  rate  50 
miles  a  minute. 


V 

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I 


